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RECENT CONCEPTIONS 
OF FREEDOM 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRE- 
MENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOS- 
OPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 
IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NORTH- 
WESTERN UNIVERSITY 



GERTRUDE CARMAN BUSSEY, A. B., A. M. 



PRKSS OF T. MOREY & SON 

GBERNFISLD, MASS. 

1917 



lULE 



TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 



TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS 
OF FREEDOM 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRE- 
MENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOS- 
OPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 
IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NORTH- 
WESTERN UNIVERSITY 



GERTRUDE CARMAN BUSSEY, A. B., A. M. 



PRESS OF T. MOREY & SON 

GIIEENFIELD, MASS. 

1917 






OUl 



u 






PREFATORY NOTE 

I am deeply indebted to Professor Edward L. Schaub, 
of Northwestern University, for his careful and keen 
criticism and his wise counsel. Without his direction, 
this essay would never have been undertaken nor com- 
pleted. 

Chapters II and VII (with some changes) have appeared 
in The Monist and The Philosophical Review, and my 
thanks are due to the editors of these periodicals for per- 
mission to reprint the articles here. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

Introduction Page 

Brief Sketch of the History of the Problem of Freedom i 

Typical Conceptions of Freedom in Contemporary Philosophy 13 

CHAPTER H 

Haeckel's Denial of Freedom 

I. Dependence of this Denial on Haeckel's General Position. ... 15 

n. Haeckel's Arguments for the Reduction of Mind to Matter. . 15 

ni. The Law of Substance 19 

IV. Mechanistic Determinism 23 

CHAPTER III 

James's Conception of Freedom 

I. Introduction 29 

II. Implications of Freedom: Contingency, Discontinuity, 

Novelty, Activity, Pluralism 30 

III. Argument for Freedom on the Ground of Moral Demands. . 38 

IV. Summary 43 

CHAPTER IV 

Bergson's Conception of Freedom 

I. Brief Comparison of Bergson's Teaching with that of James 46 
H. Freedom as (i) Spontaneity, (2) Contingency, (3) Complete 

Sclf-Exprcssion 48 

HI. Freedom and the Vital Impetus 58 

IV. Summary 62 

CHAPTER V 

Freedom and Personal Idealism 

I. Ward's View as Representative of Personal Idealism 65 

n. Freedom as Characteristic of the Finite Self 66 

III. Freedom and Panpsychism 72 

IV. Freedom and Theism 74 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

Bosanquet's Conception of Freedom ^ 

Page 

I. Contrast of Bosanquet's Doctrine with the Teachings of 

James, Bergson, and Ward 79 

II. Freedom as the Rational Self-Transcendence of the Finite. . 80 

III. Criticism of this Conception 83 

IV. Freedom as Characteristic of the Absolute 91 

CHAPTER VII 
Conclusion 95 



TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF 
FREEDOM 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

A recent writer on the problem of freedom has declared 
it to be one of the most confused and complicated prob- 
lems in the entire field of philosophy.^ This confusion 
may, as he suggests, be accounted for both by the number 
of human interests concerned and by the history of the 
problem. Freedom has been discussed from the most 
diverse angles. Sometimes it has been regarded as pri- 
marily a psychological problem; again, its intimate relation 
to problems of the moral life has been stressed; at various 
other times, its implications for metaphysics, for religion, 
for science, or for social theory have been in the forefront 
of attention. A short sketch, therefore, of the history of 
the problem may serve to bring out its many-sidedness 
and to introduce us to contemporary conceptions of 
freedom. 

In the earliest period of their philosophical reflection, 
the Greeks, with a naive trust in reason, busied themselves 
with problems of the cosmos, giving little consideration 
to specifically human issues. But the divergence of their 
world views eventually forced them to raise the question 
of the nature and possibility of knowledge, and this in- 
evitably led on to many other questions concerning the 
nature of man. This emphasis upon specifically human 
problems was accentuated by contemporary social con- 
ditions. Old customs, old rites were being discarded, 

' Cf. Windelband, Uber fVilUnsfrnhnt, Chap. I. 



2 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

and the very foundations of law and of society were being 
subjected to critical examination. The individual came 
into prominence. Great impetus was given to the study 
of psychology and rhetoric by the fact that leadership 
might be secured through their means. Such conditions 
as these favored the rise of the Sophists. The humanistic 
and individualistic bent of these thinkers would, one 
might suppose, quite naturally have led them to affirm 
the fact of freedom. Whether or not they taught this 
doctrine, however, we cannot determine; there is no 
conclusive evidence that they gave serious or careful 
consideration to it. So far as our present knowledge 
goes, it was Socrates who first definitely and explicitly 
maintained the reality of freedom. For this early phi- 
losopher, freedom referred primarily to the character of 
the act. The act that was good was also free; man was 
free whenever he chose the good. In Socrates' opinion 
evil is always involuntary, being due solely to ignorance. ^ 
This identification of freedom with good action was ac- 
cepted also by Plato. Like his master, Plato often as- 
serted that man never sinned voluntarily.^ In apparent 
contradiction to this teaching, however, Plato also de- 
clared that man was free to choose either good or evil.^ 
Thus, for Plato, freedom denoted not only virtuous or 
wise action, but also the possibility of choice. To Aris- 
totle, it was this psychological aspect of freedom that was 
of paramount interest. Believing that responsibility 
involves genuine freedom of choice, he undertook a pains- 
taking analysis of volition.^ By this means he showed 
that evil resulted from habit and training as well as from 
ignorance, and that ignorance itself was often voluntary. 
Aristotle's affirmation of the reality of freedom of choice 

2 Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia^ Bk. IV, 6, 6; Bk. Ill, 9, 4-5. 

3 Cf. Protagoras, 345 E, 358 C; Republic^ Bk. VII, 535 E; Timaus, 
86; Meno, 77 D; Sophist, 230 A. 

* Cf. Laws, Bk. X, 904 b; Republic, Bk. X, 617 e; Phaedo, 80 E. 
^ Cf. Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. Ill, 1-5. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

is in harmony with the general tendency of his metaphys- 
ics. It accords well with his emphasis upon the individual, 
and with his admission of contingency as well as of rigid 
teleology in the cosmos. Plato's acceptance of freedom, 
on the contrary, seems to conflict with his emphasis upon 
the universal, as well as with the monistic tendency of his 
philosophy. However, both Plato and Aristotle practically 
ignored the metaphysical implications of freedom, confin- 
ing their discussions to its psychological and ethical aspects. 
The credit for first centering attention upon the meta- 
physical aspect of the problem of freedom belongs to the 
Stoics and the Epicureans. This historical fact cannot 
be completely explained, yet there are certain considera- 
tions that throw some light upon it. The foundation for 
such a discussion had been laid by the work of Socrates, 
Plato, and Aristotle. Moreover, the decline of Greek 
supremacy had thrown the Greek back upon himself so 
that he realized the significance of his own personality 
as never before. Furthermore, in being freed from some 
of the artificial limitations of national existence, he be- 
came cosmopolitan in his outlook, and was led to the 
problem of the relation of his life to the universe as a 
whole. Thus he was confronted with the task of reconcil- 
ing his new-found individuality with his view of the ulti- 
mate nature of the universe. The Stoics, to be sure, never 
reached a completely consistent solution of this problem. 
On the one hand, they regarded the universe as com- 
pletely rational, and as determined by eternal and neces- 
sary laws. From this point of view, they subordinated 
the individual to the whole, and consequently denied free- 
dom in the sense of contingency.^ On the other hand, 
they exalted man's self-dependence, stoutly aflirming 
that man's will was so completely in his own power, 
that not even Zeus could overthrow it.^ The aim of the 

' Cf. Diogenes Lurtes, Bk. VII, Ixxii-lxxiv; Cicero, De Falo, xvii; 
Antoninus, Meditations, IV, 26; V, 8; VIII, 5; X, 5; XII, 26. 
' Cf. Epictctus, Disc, Bk. I, i; sec also Cicero, De Fata, XVIII. 



4 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

Stoics was, of course, to deny freedom as contingency, 
but to establish it as the willing submission of the wise 
man to the eternal and rational order of nature. In op- 
position to this teaching the Epicureans maintained free- 
dom in the sense of sheer contingency. This contingency, 
moreover, they predicated of atoms as well as of men, 
and made one of the fundamental principles of their 
cosmology.^ Thus, then, there are here brought face to 
face, the view that freedom consists in rational or ethical 
self-determination, and the assertion that it involves con- 
tingency or chance — two conceptions which are still hotly 
contested in recent discussions of the problem of freedom. 
The later teachings of both Stoicism and Epicureanism 
are tinged with a religious coloring. This religious as- 
pect appears even more' clearly in Neo-Platonism, and in 
Patristic Philosophy. The change which thus took place 
in the character of philosophical thought emerged from a 
number of causes. It was due in part to the fact that the 
conflicts between the various speculative systems and the 
failure of any to give complete satisfaction bred a distrust 
of reason. Man longed for salvation. He could not, 
however, find it in traditional religion, for he no longer 
believed in the gods of his fathers, nor could he seem to 
attain it in any of the current systems of thought. The 
religious longing of the period, moreover, was rendered 
more intense by the contact of the Occidental with the 
Oriental mind. Through this contact, Greek and Roman 
became imbued with a feeling of awe and wonder at the 
mystery of life, and with a desire for the supernatural. 
Inevitably this change of feeling reflected itself in the dis- 
cussion of all problems. The question of freedom came 
to be centered upon the relation of the soul of the individ- 
ual to the supreme source of all beauty and goodness. 
For example, in the philosophy of Plotinos,^ freedom 

^ Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Bk. I, 25; Lucretius, De Rerum 
Naturce, Bk. II, 251-293. 

» Cf. Plotinos, Enneads, III, 2; IV, 3, 8; VI, 4, 8, 15. 



INTRODUCTION S 

consists in the ability of the soul either to turn from "the 
Good" or steadfastly to seek the good and to strive to 
return to the One whence it came. Although such freedom 
on the part of the individual seems incompatible with 
Plotinos' complete monism, he was constrained to admit 
it as an explanation of the existence of evil and of 
moral striving. He taught also that man attains true 
freedom only in so far as he becomes one with the 
Good. 

The religious note, however strong in neo-platonic 
thought, was even more dominant in Patristic Philosophy. 
The early Christian Fathers, in working out their theol- 
ogy, inevitably took over many of the conceptions and 
problems of the contemporaneous philosophical systems. 
These conceptions and problems, however, were neces- 
sarily altered by being brought into relation with Chris- 
tian beliefs. Not infrequently new motives for their dis- 
cussion were brought into play. Such was the case with 
freedom. Certain elements in Christianity urgently 
demanded its affirmation. In the first place, Christianity 
not merely continued the Jewish emphasis on conscience, 
sin, and responsibility, but it stressed to quite a novel 
degree the value and significance of the individual. In 
the second place, it regarded God as supremely Good, and 
could not therefore make Him responsible for evil. Thus. 
the early Christian Fathers, like Plotinos, eagerly affirmed 
freedom as the explanation of evil.^^ Yet there were 
motives in Christianity which led in the opposite direc- 
tion. As the church organization became stronger, the 
individual dwindled in importance. With the develop- 
ment of Christian theology, moreover, the difficulty of 
reconciling individual freedom with God*s omnipotence 
and with the doctrine of salvation as a gift of grace be- 
came ever more apparent. Hence it was that Augustine, 

•oCf. Tcrtullian, De Anima, Chaps. XXXIX-XLI; Clement, 
Padagogus, Bk. I, Chaps. I, II and XIII, passim; Origen, De Prin- 
cipxis, III, I, 18-19; Contra Cdsum, IV, 3. 



6 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

in spite of an express affirmation of freedom, ^^ declared 
that God could control man's will, and that He elected 
whom He would for salvation. ^^ ^^j^js view of God's 
election was, of course, not peculiar to Augustine. It was 
a common, though a disputed, teaching in the Church, 
and found its way into Protestant theology through the 
teachings of Calvin ^^ and Zwinglr. 

The doctrine that election depends solely on the Divine 
will raises the question of the nature of God's volition. 
According to Augustine, God's will must be regarded as 
absolutely free in the extreme sense of arbitrary or indiffer- 
ent, since His choice cannot be motivated by any merit 
or particular characteristics of the individual. The same 
general problem was raised even more clearly a few cen- 
turies later in the famous controversy between Thomas 
Aquinas and Duns Scotus. The former maintained that 
God's will is determined by his reason, while the latter 
contended that it is determined by itself alone. Accord- 
ing to the one, God chooses a thing because it is good; 
according to the other, it is good because He so chooses. ^^ 
The large importance of the theological interest in medi- 
eval philosophy should not blind us to the fact that many 
of its problems have also a purely human aspect and 
reference. Thomas's discussion of the relation between 
will and reason concerned not merely God's will, but hu- 
man volition as well. The problem thus raised is still as 
pressing as ever, and is fundamental to the discussion of 
freedom. 

With the Renaissance there came a change in the general 
direction of philosophy. The causes and characteristics 

" Of. Nature and Grace, 32; Grace and Free Will, Chap. II; City oj 
God, Bk. V, Chaps. IX-X; Bk. XI, Chap. XVII. 

12 Cf. Rebuke and Grace, Chap. XXVIII; City of God, Bk. XIV, 
Chap. XI; Nature and Grace, Chap. XXV; Grace and Free Will, Chaps. 
X, XX. 

"Cf. Calvin, Institutes, Bk. Ill, 11, 22. 

^* Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, XXIII, 3d article; 
Duns Scotus, Oxon. Ill, Chap. 119. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

of this change have been so often discussed that we need 
not recite them in this connection. Suffice it to say that, 
in the early days of modern philosophy, reason and the 
method of the mathematical sciences were so in the 
ascendant that the will was relegated to a subordinate 
position. Philosophy consequently acquired a monistic 
tendency. As a result, the value and significance of the 
finite individual were imperilled, and human freedom was 
denied. It is true that Descartes affirmed the reality of 
freedom and used it in explanation of error. ^^ Yet he 
failed to reconcile this affirmation either with his belief in 
God's omnipotence, or (what was of more significance for 
the subsequent development of philosophy) with his meta- 
physical teaching concerning the dependence of every 
finite substance upon the Infinite Substance. This latter 
teaching was carried out to its logical conclusion by 
Spinoza. In his case, it resulted in a complete monism 
that involved the absolute necessity of law and precluded 
the existence of freedom as contingency.^^ In spite of 
Spinoza's deterministic conclusion, many of his state- 
ments at least imply the reality of genuine freedom of 
choice. Yet it is plain that he intended to deny con- 
tingency absolutely and to maintain freedom only in the 
sense of completely rational activity. In this deterministic 
view, Spinoza was at one with the materialist Hobbes. 
Hobbes likewise taught that freedom was opposed, not 
to necessity, but to external constraint, and that man's 
volition, like all other facts of the universe, was completely 
determined and necessary. ^^ 

An attempt to rescue man from the chain of necessity 
was made in the philosophy of Leibniz. This philosophy 
broke with the Spinozistic monism, and, by its emphasis 
on activity and individuality, led naturally to an aflirma- 

'» Cf. Descartes, Meditations, IV; Principles, Part I, Props. XXXIV- 
XXXIX. 

'• Cf. Spinoza, Ethics, Part I, Props, xvl, xvii; Part V. 
" Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, Chap. 21, Part 2. 



8 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

tion of the reality of freedom. Leibniz distinguished 
carefully between ethical and metaphysical freedom, but 
accepted them both. The former, he declared, admits of 
degrees, and, in its highest degree, is characteristic of God 
alone. The latter consists in a denial of necessity, and is 
the attribute of will as such.^^ Yet Leibniz' affirmation 
of freedom was not consistently carried through. It came 
into an apparently irreconcilable conflict with his doctrine 
of pre-established harmony. Leibniz tried, it is true, to 
avoid this contradiction by analyzing the meaning of 
'possible,' and by contrasting contingent facts with neces- 
sary truths. ^^ He, however, did not succeed in showing 
that a thing is genuinely possible because it and its op- 
posite are alike conceivable, nor that two alternatives can 
really be possible if all is predetermined. Furthermore, 
nothing is gained by the isolation of individuals and by the 
r;mphasis on consciousness so long as the succession of psy- 
chical states is regarded as predetermined. A conscious 
automaton is, as Kant said, none the less an automaton.^^ 

Meanwhile an attempt was being made to solve the 
problem of freedom empirically. It was on the ground of 
experience that Locke was led to maintain the reality of 
freedom of choice. He asserted that "So far as a man has 
power to think, or not to think; to move, or not to move, 
according to the preference or direction of his own mind; 
so far is a man free." ^^ He objected to the term freedom of 
the will on the ground that freedom or liberty belongs to 
the agent and not to the will. Later empirical discussions 
of freedom utilized a distinction that had already been 
made between freedom as opposed to constraint and 
freedom as opposed to necessity. The former, more 

18 Cf. Leibniz, New Essays, Bk. II, Chap. XXI; Duncan's Ed., 
XXVII; Gerhardt's Ed., I, p. 331. 

'9 Cf. Duncan's Ed., XXVI, XXX; New Essays, Bk. IV, Chap. VI. 

2" Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Bk. I, Chap. Ill (Abbott Ed., 

p. 195). 

21 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, Bk. II, Chap. 21, 
8; cf. also the whole chapter passim. • 



INTRODUCTION 9 

accessible to direct observation, was held in many in- 
stances to constitute the very essence of freedom. Thus 
the term freedom commonly came to have the purely 
negative connotation of absence of constraint.-- This 
conception played an important part not only in the 
history of thought, but also in the world of political and 
social affairs. It was the fundamental concept of the 
extreme individualism of the eighteenth century and was 
the watchword of revolutionists and reformers. It se- 
cured a lasting embodiment in the American Constitution 
and in the Bills of Rights of the American States and of 
France. Indeed, it is still influential in much of our 
thinking concerning the function of government. Al- 
though this emphasis on the negative aspect of freedom 
was perhaps a necessary accompaniment of the attempt to 
free the individual from the absolutism of both state and 
church, the inadequacy of such freedom was proved by the 
course of social events. It was discredited by the changes 
resulting from the industrial revolution and from the 
evils growing out of the laissez-faire policy. The theo- 
retical insufficiency of the merely negative concept of 
freedom was disclosed by the work of the German Ideal- 
ists and of the English Hegelians. But before we can see 
the force of their criticisms, we must turn to the philoso- 
phy of Kant. 

Kant introduced a distinctly new element into the dis- 
cussion of freedom. His critique of the theoretical reason 
aimed to show that science could not dispose of the prob- 
lem.-^ This made possible the affirmation of freedom on 
the ground of the demands of the moral life.-^ In this 
manner there were introduced considerations of value 

" Cf. Hume, Enquiry, Sect. VIII; cf. also the views of Mill, Ben- 
tham, and Spencer. 

" Cf. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to 2d ed., Part II, 
Division II; Miillcr, pp. 362 flF., 432 flp. 

'* Cf. Kant, Melaphysic of Morals, Sect. Ill; Abbott, pp. 66 fF; 
Critique of the Practical Reason, Bk. I, Chap. Ill, Abbott ed., pp. i6s 
ff., 182 fT. 



lo TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

and worth as well as of mere existence. Kant, moreover, 
worked out the distinction between the phenomenal and 
the noumenal, the temporal and the non-temporal. How- 
ever much the resulting account of freedom may have 
failed to attain complete consistency,^^ Kant nevertheless 
blazed the trial which subsequent philosophers have in 
large numbers followed. 

The successors of Kant, disagreeing in their interpreta- 
tion of the critical philosophy, were led to somewhat 
divergent doctrines concerning freedom. Fichte, like 
Kant, regarded freedom as the postulate of the moral 
consciousness. He went further and made it the very 
basis of his metaphysics.^^ The emphasis on moral obli- 
gation, moreover, led him to a recognition of the contrast 
between the ideal and the actual, and to an exaltation of 
the ideal. When we come to Hegel, we meet with an 
essentially different spirit. Whatever their points of 
agreement may be, Hegel presents, in opposition to the 
extreme voluntarism of Fichte, an absolute rationalism. 
Hegel, however, did not deny the reality of freedom. 
Rather should it be said that he developed the distinction 
made by Kant and Fichte between the empirical and the 
transcendental self, and predicated freedom of the latter. 
Like Fichte, furthermore, he regarded the transcendental 
self as the absolute or universal self. He conceived the 
finite self to be free only in so far as the finite identified 
his life with the life of the whole. The concrete expression 
of his freedom was found not in his capricious activity — 
his mere ability to do as he pleased — but in his lawful 
activity as a member of the state. ^^ 

The conception of freedom as characteristic of an in- 

25 Kant sometimes implied that the rational self alone was free, 
while at other times he taught that the self could choose either good or 
evil. There are serious difficulties too, as has frequently been pointed 
out, in the conception of transcendental freedom. 

2« Fichte, Vocation of Man, Bk. Ill, Open Court Ed., pp. 99 flf.; 
Science of Rights, Fart I, Bk. I., SammtHche Werke, I, pp. 263 ff. 

" Cf. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Introduction. 



INTRODUCTION ii 

dividual regarded as a member of a social whole was 
imported into England by Green, as a corrective of those 
theories which interpreted freedom in the purely negative 
sense of absence of constraint. The Hegelian conception 
was in harmony with the new social consciousness, and 
found ready adoption on the part of many English think- 
ers. It seemed, indeed, as though the problem of freedom 
were nearing a satisfactory solution, and as though free- 
dom would henceforth be regarded as the rational activity 
of the social self as a member of the Absolute. Neverthe- 
less, certain counter-tendencies remained, and in recent 
years especially, the absolutists' view of freedom has been 
assailed from many quarters. 

The development of science has seemed to many to 
insure the victory of determinism. By its constant re- 
liance upon the category of mechanical causation, science 
apparently leaves no place for freedom within its domain. 
Hence the extension of its field over the realms of life 
and consciousness has been viewed with alarm by up- 
holders of freedom, who have felt that freedom was being 
crowded back into smaller and smaller areas, and that 
eventually it was likely to disappear completely. Yet 
purely mechanistic determinism has no new category to 
offer, and still fails to meet the Kantian critique. 

The greatest light thrown by science in recent years on 
the problem of freedom undoubtedly proceeds from the 
doctrine of evolution. The thought of evolution is, of 
course, a very ancient one. Yet it exercised neither a 
profound nor a wide influence upon human thought 
until the publication of the Origin of Species. At first 
it seemed that evolution might disprove freedom by bring- 
ing fresh evidence in support of mechanism. It is now 
evident, however, that the theory has implications which 
lead in the opposite direction. The genetic method, 
brought into favor by an acceptance of evolution, has 
shown that mechanical causation of itself does not afford 
an adequate description of development or growth. 



12 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

Many thinkers, moreover, have maintained that the 
reahty of time and of change, involved in the doctrine of 
evolution, is inconsistent with a belief in universal mech- 
anism. This contention, indeed, forms the basis for many 
recent arguments in favor of freedom. 

Added to the above is a second set of considerations. 
The study of genetic, abnormal, and social psychology has 
disclosed the influence of non-rational factors in man's 
experience. It is an established fact that such factors play 
a role even in the case of thinking and that conduct is 
ordinarily determined by habit, imitation, suggestion, or 
emotion, rather than by reason. As a result there has, 
in many quarters, appeared a reaction against rationalism, 
along with an adoption of some form either of voluntarism 
or of intuitionism. In both cases there are involved 
motives for a renewed insistence upon freedom. 

In the third place, the growth of democracy has focussed 
attention upon the value of every individual as such. 
To be sure, the democratic movement has also been 
accompanied by a continually increasing complexity in 
modern life. Out of this complexity a vast system of in- 
terrelations has arisen, and this has sometimes threatened 
to engulf the individual. Yet individualism is by no 
means dead. It still raises its protest against those who 
would reduce man to a mere cog in a social and industrial 
machine, or to an expression of the Absolute. 

For these and many other less important reasons, 
freedom is once more being discussed with avidity, there 
being many motives, new as well as old, and many points 
of view. It would seem profitable, therefore, to under- 
take a critical survey of the most typical among the recent 
doctrines concerning freedom. In view of the great 
diversity of such doctrines, there is some difiiculty in 
singling out those which may be regarded as most repre- 
sentative. Our aim has been so to select them as to 
bring out as clearly as possible the different logical prin- 
ciples underlying the various discussions. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

We thus consider first a denial of freedom from the 
point of view of a purely naturalistic philosophy. As 
representative of this tendency, we have selected Ernst 
Haeckel, inasmuch as his writings have attained wide 
popularity and influence. In his exaltation of mechanical 
causation as the sole explanatory principle of the universe, 
Haeckel represents the view of many present day scientists 
and psychologists. 

As embodying the view logically antithetical to that 
of Haeckel, the doctrine of William James is next discussed. 
Of all modern protagonists of freedom, James asserts its 
reality in the most uncompromising manner. Rather 
than be deluded by any form of "soft determinism," he 
regards freedom as sheer chance. Hence he beings out in a 
thoroughgoing fashion, the various implications of free- 
dom as contingency. His discussion, moreover, bears 
witness to many of the difl'erent tendencies in modern life 
and thought that lead to freedom. It is motivated by a 
democratic appreciation of individuality, by a Western 
exaltation of action, by a rugged and courageous attitude 
toward life, by an heroic acceptance of the demands of 
morality, and by a constant insistence upon the reality 
of time. 

Our consideration of James' conception is followed by a 
study of Bergson's view. Like the philosophy of James, 
the thought of Bergson exemplifies the tendency to em- 
phasize time and activity, and to exalt immediacy at the 
expense of conceptual thinking. Bergson's treatment of 
freedom does not perhaps involve any logical principle 
not present in James' teaching. It cannot, however, well 
be omitted from any discussion of contemporary concep- 
tions of freedom, since it is often regarded as the most 
conclusive and triumphant vindication of freedom in 
modern thought. For Bergson, indeed, freedom is the 
very principle of all life and activity, and thus discloses 
the inmost nature of reality. 

As an interesting supplement to the more or less natu- 



14 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

ralistic views of James and Bergson, the spiritualistic 
conception of freedom maintained by James Ward is 
next examined. Ward's discussion is motivated through- 
out by a desire to do full justice to human personality, 
without losing sight of its relation to God as creative 
spirit and world ground. Thus Ward is influenced by 
motives which were dominant in patristic and medieval 
philosophy, which affected the view of Leibniz and Des- 
cartes, which profoundly influenced German Idealism, 
and which indeed are operative in any attempt to work 
out a conception of man that shall do justice at one and 
the same time to his moral, religious, and philosophical 
demands. 

Our study is concluded by a consideration of Bosan- 
quet's conception of freedom. The principal motive in 
this case is the desire for complete rationality. Bosan- 
quet is thus led directly to monism. Hence his conception 
serves to furnish light on the question whether monism 
is compatible with the reality of freedom. For Bosanquet, 
as for the Stoics, for Spinoza, and for the Neo-Kantian 
Idealists, freedom is equivalent not to contingency but to 
rational self-expression, i. e., to the self-transcending 
activity of the individual as an expression of the Absolute. 

Our discussion of recent conceptions of freedom ad- 
vances no claim of indicating a satisfactory solution of the 
problem. Its aim is the much humbler one of analyz- 
ing the question and of exhibiting the logical implications 
inherent in various recent treatments of it. 



CHAPTER II 

haeckel's denial of freedom 

I 

"The great struggle between the determinlst and the 
indeterminist, between the opponent and the sustainer of 
the freedom of the will, has ended to-day, after more than 
two thousand years, completely in favor of the determin- 
lst. The human will has no more freedom than that of 
the higher animals, from which it differs only in degree, 
not in kind. We now know that each act of the will is as 
fatally determined by the organization of the individual 
and as dependent on the momentary condition of his 
environment as every other psychic activity." ^^ 

Haeckel's categorical denial of freedom, as thus ex- 
pressed, proceeds from his general world-view. This 
world-view is based on the doctrine of evolution and on 
the belief in the universality of the "law of substance." 
The former leads Haeckel to a materialistic conclusion; 
the latter, to a mechanistic determinism. Our first task, 
therefore, will be to consider the question whether the 
existence of a spiritual principle is precluded by evolution, 
or by any other consideration suggested by Haeckel. We 
shall then proceed to the question of the universality of 
the "law of substance" and to the problem of its relation 
to mechanism. Finally, we shall examine briefly the 
adequacy of mechanism itself as a philosophic explanation 
of the universe. 

II 

Haeckel never tires of citing facts in support of the doc- 
trine of evolution. Since this doctrine, in some form or 
other, is now almost universally accepted as true, wc need 
2^ The Riddle of the Universe, pp. 130 f. 



i6 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

not in this connection stop to inquire concerning the 
adequacy of the evidence which Haeckel adduces in its 
support. The only question for us to consider is whether 
the doctrine of evolution inevitably leads, as Haeckel 
sometimes argues, to the reduction of mind to matter. 
Put very simply, Haeckel's argument for this conclusion is 
that, since man developed from the lowest forms of life, 
there is no reason to attribute to him a separate immaterial 
or spiritual principle not found in the forms of life from 
which he originated. Many objections to this argument 
at once suggest themselves. It takes for granted the old 
scholastic idea of rigid continuity according to which 
nothing new can ever arise. Now there are grave diffi- 
culties in this view. Even waiving these for the mo- 
ment, however, Haeckel's conclusion by no means follows. 
Rather, the doctrine of continuity, if strictly held, would 
force him to ascribe to the lowest organism all the capaci- 
ties and meanings which have appeared in the highest 
forms of life. For, on the assumption of rigid continuity, 
the very fact that certain phenomena such as sensation 
and will have developed in the later stages of the evolu- 
tionary process, would show that these phenomena were 
implicit in the earlier forms of life. Thus, Haeckel would 
be compelled to understand the protozoa in the light of 
man, rather than to reduce man to the level of a proto- 
zoan. Sometimes, indeed, he seems to do this. With 
an amazing anthropomorphism he, on occasion, bestows 
elementary will and elementary emotion upon even inan- 
imate matter.^^ If he held consistently to this view, his 
system would be in the nature of a teleological hylo- 
zoism rather than of a mechanical determinism. As 
has already been suggested, however, this reading of 
continuity — this attribution of man's processes to the 
lower forms of life — is misleading. It involves what 
Baldwin calls ''the fallacy of the implicit." As a matter 
of fact, if progress is genuine, there must arise new proc- 
29 Cf. infra, p. 26. 



HAECKEL'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM 17 

esses and new meanings which cannot be interpreted 
solely in terms of the earlier. Thus, even though life 
has arisen from the inanimate, and consciousness from 
the unconscious, they must be recognized as possessing 
certain essentially novel characteristics. It is fallacious 
either to read them back as implicit in the earlier stages or 
to reduce them to the level of the latter and thus deny 
them. Hence the doctrine of evolution in no wise militates 
against the spiritual nature of man. Rather it carries a 
presumption that man's nature is not only more developed 
but higher than the merely physical or the merely bio- 
logical. 

In addition to the argument drawn from evolution, 
Haeckel adduces several other considerations in support 
of his denial of the spiritual nature of man. He brings 
forward the evidence of experiments which have shown 
that various functions of the "soul," such as speech and 
sense images, are connected with definite areas of the 
cortex of the brain, and that they disappear when these 
areas are diseased or destroyed. ^^ Again, he calls our 
attention to the close connection between man's higher 
cerebral functions and purely physiological processes — a 
connection especially striking in the case of emotions. "^^ 
Furthermore, he insists that there are certain facts con- 
nected with the individual's development which indicate 
that the "soul" originates, grows, and decays with the 
body. -^2 Finally, he points out that in not a single instance 
do we have knowledge of a spiritual principle unconnected 
with a physical substrate.-^^ 

These various considerations do indeed show clearly 
that there is some relation between mind and body. They 
do not, however, lead to a reduction of mind to body. 

•* Cf . Last fVords on Evolution, pp. 98 f.; l^he Riddle 0/ the Universe, 
p. 204. 

*' Cf. The Riddle 0/ the Universe, pp. 127, 204. 
"Cf. ibid.. Chap. VIII. 
" Cf. ibid., pp. 90, 91. 



i8 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

The facts can be read as easily the other way. As a 
matter of fact, we are as conscious of the influence of mind 
on body as of body on mind. It is true that illness or 
various physical causes affect man's mental processes, but 
it is no less obvious that man's mental processes aflfect 
his physical condition. Indeed, every act of will is evi- 
dence of the power of mind over matter. To this Haeckel 
might retort, "What you call will is merely a certain 
functioning of a physiological organism. I can even dis- 
close to you, with my microscope, the minute structures 
in the brain by which willing takes place." But can 
Haeckel prove his point in this manner.^ The brain with 
its various structures may be, not the cause of mind, but 
the instrument of mind's expression. ^^ Moreover, the very 
facts of pathology which are cited by Haeckel to show the 
dependence of mind on matter are used by Bergson to 
prove that mind cannot be located in the brain, nor be de- 
termined by it.^^ Furthermore, in this controversy con- 
cerning the relation of mind and body, does it not devolve 
upon men Hke Haeckel to meet the Berkeleian retort, ''The 
brain, the nervous system, etc., to which you attempt 
to reduce mind, are known only as ideas of mind, and 
cannot be proved to exist apart from mind.^ " 

Haeckel's arguments frequently betray a misunder- 
standing of his opponent's position. They are all directed 
against the conception of a separate, immaterial substance 
or soul. Most idealists, however, regard the soul as ac- 
tivity or functioning, rather than as substance. They do 
not insist on the separateness of the psychic principle, or 
on the existence of any disembodied spirit, but rather on 
the fact that human experience cannot be explained in 
purely physical or physiological terms. Haeckel main- 
tains that the soul represents but the "sum total of phys- 
iological functions." The problem of the activity of the 

" Cf. Schiller, Riddles of the Sphinx, pp. 293 If.; Bergson, Matter and 
Memory, pp. 299 ff.; James, Human Immortality, pp. 7-29. 
^^ Cf. Bergson, Matter and Memory, Chap. II. 



HAECKEL'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM 19 

soul, however, is not thereby solved. Consciousness is 
a fundamental fact of experience, and it cannot be ex- 
plained by being set aside, or labelled an epiphenomenon. 
The materialist must explain not only how the body 
reacts, but how it is conscious, how it thinks, evaluates, 
loves, struggles, and sacrifices. It is indeed questionable 
whether this activity can be interpreted in purely biologi- 
cal or physiological terms. The so-called body becomes 
equivalent to the mind, and demands the same sort of an 
explanation. 

We conclude, then, from this discussion that Haeckel's 
reduction of the psychical to the physical is not valid, and 
we turn to an examination of the "law of substance" — 
the second main support of Haeckel's system. 

Ill 

The *'law of substance" is a combination of the well- 
known scientific laws of the "conservation of matter" 
and the conservation of energy." According to Haeckel, 
these latter laws are but two aspects of the one great cos- 
mic law, since they relate to the two inseparable attri- 
butes of substance. ^^ In passing, it may be noted that 
little is gained by this combination of the two laws, inas- 
much as the conception of 'Substance' fails to make 
intelligible the relation between matter and energy. 
Haeckel, however, regards the "law of substance " as the 
one great eternal cosmic law. On what evidence then 
can he base its validity.^ 

The evidence for the law lies in the realm of scientific 
experiment. Thus, the law of "conservation of energy" 
rests on the fact that many experiments have shown that 
when one form of energy is changed into another, the 
latter may be reconverted into the former with only a 
slight loss, due to the escape of part of the energy into an 
unavailable form. Similarly, the law of the conservation 
of matter rests on experiments which have demonstrated 
» Cf. The RiddU of the Universe, Chap. XII. 



20 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

that the weight of a substance does not change throughout 
a series of chemical transformations. Moreover, no ex- 
periments have given any indication of the creation or 
destruction of matter or of energy. That the generaliza- 
tion of a great number of phenomena under the laws in 
discussion must indeed be regarded as a great achievement 
on the part of science no one should in the least doubt. 
Yet it is one thing to regard these laws as generalizations 
useful and valid for the purposes of science, and quite 
another to erect them into ontological and absolutely 
universal laws. Against this latter proceeding, which is 
that of Haeckel, an emphatic protest must be made. For 
this protest there are three grounds: first, the laws have 
never been proved to hold exactly in any field; second, 
the fact that the laws appear to hold in one or two fields 
is no justification for the assertion that they must hold in 
all fields; third, experience can never prove the absolute 
universality of any law. 

In the first place, it is manifestly impossible to prove 
that the laws hold exactly in any field, since the inaccuracy 
of scientific instruments is such that small differences 
might pass unnoted. Furthermore, there are always ex- 
traneous circumstances which must be taken into account 
in an appraisal of the results of an experiment. A scien- 
tific result is always an approximation. The scientific law 
states what would take place under ideal circumstances 
rather than what occurs in any concrete situation. 

In the second place, the fact that the laws appear to 
hold true within certain fields of our experience does not 
show that they must hold universally. Thus the demon- 
stration of the laws in the case of physical and chemical 
changes, would furnish no proof of their applicability to 
psychical changes. It is at this point that Haeckers as- 
sertion of the universality of the law depends upon his 
reduction of the psychical to the physical. Since this is 
not valid, he is not entitled, without more ado, to extend 
the application of the law to conscious processes. The 



HAECKEL'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM 21 

application of the law here must rest upon experiments 
showing that a certain amount of physical energy can be 
transformed into consciousness or "psychic energy," and 
reconverted into approximately the original amount of 
physical energy as mechanical energy can be converted 
into heat. Manifest difficulties stand in the way of such 
experimentation, but until something of the sort is carried 
out, there is little significance in speaking of the psychical 
life as a form of energy. To do so merely covers up the 
fact of our ignorance concerning the relation between 
psychical and physical changes. Now apparently Haeckel 
himself is aware of some of the difficulties in the way of 
regarding the psychic as a form of energy, since in his last 
work he explicitly teaches, contrary to many of his pre- 
vious assertions, that the psychic is a separate attribute 
of substance, co-ordinate with matter and energy.^^ If 
this were admitted, however, the psychic, to come under 
the law of substance, would demand its own law of the 
"conservation of the psychic." In any case, the import- 
ant point for our purpose is, that until the law is proved to 
be valid in the psychical field, it furnishes no ground for a 
denial of freedom. 

Our last objection needs no justification, as it is a philo- 
sophic commonplace that laws resting on experience can 
be universalized only by means of the supposition of the 
uniformity of nature. This uniformity, however, cannot 
be proved by experience without the assumption of its 
own existence in the attempted proof. Thus, the ob- 
servation that the laws apparently hold in a comparatively 
few instances within the narrow range of our experience, 
is no proof that they have always held and will always 
hold throughout the length and breadth of the universe. 

We have seen reason to question the dogmatic assertion 
of the universality of the law of substance. Yet, if it be 
admitted, for the sake of argument, tliat the law is univer- 

" Cf. Die Lebenszvunder, p. 185. Contrast with The Riddle of the 
Universe, p. 220, and Anthropogenie, p. 941. 



22 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

sal and necessary, it by no means follows that this law 
alone gives an adequate account of reality, and a solution 
of all its riddles. The law is an abstraction: it is purely 
quantitative, and, as such, leaves out of account the 
qualitative aspects of the universe. Thus, although the 
amount of matter and energy in the universe remain con- 
stant, yet changes in their form or in their combination 
bring about new qualities, not reducible to mere quantity. 
Take, for example, the case of a chemist who combines 
two or more elements. Their weight remains constant 
throughout the chemical transformation. Yet this quan- 
titative equality in no wise describes the changes in color, 
odor, and in other qualities that have occurred. These 
qualitative aspects, however, although they cannot be 
described by the law of substance nor comprehended in 
a system which uses this law as the solution of all its 
problems, are nevertheless real. 

Haeckel regards the law of substance as inseparably 
bound up with mechanical causation. ^^ The relationship 
between the two is, however, not so simple nor so self- 
evident as he would have us believe. The law of sub- 
stance, he tells us, is a consequence of mechanical causa- 
tion, yet his proof of the latter rests largely on his supposed 
proof of the universality of the former. Now, the law of 
mechanical causation, involving the equivalence of past 
and present, might lead naturally, though perhaps not 
inevitably, to the law of substance. On the other hand, 
the law of substance does not necessarily involve me- 
chanical causation. It does indeed preclude absolute 
spontaneity, but it would be as compatible with teleology 
as with mechanism, since it says nothing concerning the 
origin of changes in matter or energy. The amount of 
energy and matter in the universe might remain constant 
if their changes were due to something akin to desire as 
well as if they were due to a vis a tergo. Thus, even the 
universality of the "law of substance " would not prove the 
38 Cf. The Riddle of the Universe, pp. 215, 366. 



HAECKEL'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM 23 

universality of mechanism. The latter theory must stand 
on its own feet, and be accepted or rejected on its own 
merits. 

IV 

Haeckel declares that mechanical causation is adequate 
for the explanation of all phenomena. To quote his own 
words, "The great abstract law of mechanical causality, 
of which our cosmological law — the law of substance — 
is but another and a concrete expression, now rules the 
entire universe, as it does the mind of man; it is the 
steady, immovable pole-star, whose clear light falls on our 
path through the dark labyrinth of the countless separate 
phenomena." ^^ "The monism of the cosmos which we 
establish thereon proclaims the absolute dominion of *the 
great eternal iron laws ' throughout the universe. It 
thus shatters, at the same time, the three central dogmas 
of the dualistic philosophy — the personality of God, the 
immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will."'*° 
Before accepting Haeckel's conclusion concerning freedom, 
we must examine the adequacy of mechanism itself. 

The doctrine of universal mechanism has been repeat- 
edly challenged, and many significant objections have 
been urged against it. Of these objections, however, 
we shall stress only the following: first, the universality 
of mechanism cannot be proved; second, the universality 
of mechanical causation would not, as Haeckel would have 
us believe, necessarily preclude purpose and rational or 
ethical freedom; third, mechanism by itself fails to give a 
satisfactory account of experience as we actually know it. 

We contend that mechanism cannot be proved. Ex- 
perience cannot show that mechanical causation is univer- 
sal and necessary, and reason docs not disclose any logical 
necessity for insisting that every aspect of reality shall be 
explained by reference to the past. On the contrary, the 
concept of mechanical causation is full of difficulties which 

» The Riddle of the Universe, p. 366. <^ Ibid., p. 381. 



24 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

force the mind beyond it.'*^ The universality of mechani- 
cal causation is indeed a useful methodological postulate 
of science, but not necessarily a universal principle of 
reality. Haeckel makes many dogmatic assertions to the 
effect that mechanism is universal, and that even the will 
is absolutely bound by the causal law. Yet obviously 
he cannot prove that such is the case. He cannot prove 
that A did a certain act because A had a certain heredity 
and a certain environment, and that A could not have done 
anything else. Indeed in the case of human activities, 
there are so many complex factors that it is practically 
impossible to isolate any set of conditions in such a way as 
to establish a uniform series of cause and effect. Thus, 
psychology finds it difficult to use the scientific methods 
found fruitful in other fields, and has not yet succeeded in 
establishing a uniform causal connection between mental 
phenomena. The possibility therefore remains that men- 
tal processes may resist such causal treatment. 

In the second place, even though mechanism were 
proved to be universal, this would by no means preclude 
the possibility of purpose, of value, and of rational or 
ethical freedom. Haeckel's own absolute denial of all 
distinctions of value is evident in the following quo- 
tations: "As our earth is a mere speck in the sunbeam in 
the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a tiny grain 
of protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic 
nature." ^^ "Our own * human nature,' which exalted 
itself into an image of God in its anthropistic illusion, 
sinks to the level of a placental mammal, which has no 
more value for the universe at large than the ant, the fly 
of a summer's day, the microscopic infusorium, or the 
smallest bacillus. Humanity is but a transitory phase of 
the evolution of an eternal substance, a particular phenom- 

*i For a careful analysis of causation, cf. Taylor, Metaphysics^ pp. 
158-90; Ward, Realm of Ends, pp. 273 ff.; Bergson, Time and Free Will, 
pp. 199-221. 

" The Riddle of the Universe, p. 14. 



HAECKEL'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM 2$ 

enal form of matter and energy, the true proportion of 
which we soon perceive when we set it on the background 
of infinite space and eternal time." ^^ From Haeckel's 
point of view neither man nor the bacillus can have any 
value for the "universe at large," since there is, in his 
opinion, no purpose whatsoever in the universe. All 
is but the result of blind forces, *^ and even the progress 
of evolution is of no value to the universe. Now this 
denial of value is explained by the fact that Haeckel al- 
ways associates teleology with a separate immaterial 
principle. He regards it as an interruption of mechanical 
causation, and so feels that it is incompatible with monism. 
Whether or not we shall find that an absolute monism of 
any sort is compatible with distinctions of value, and with 
freedom, at least it is plain that the denial of teleology 
does not necessarily follow from the establishment of me- 
chanical causation. Mechanism, as many teleologists 
tell us, may be the instrument of purpose. Far from being 
antagonistic to teleology, it alone makes teleology possible. 
Without it, purpose would be impotent. For example — 
to take an analogy from human life — man can utilize 
natural processes for the carrying out of his purposes, only 
in so far as he can rely upon their mechanical uniformity. 
Even a machine is an embodiment of purpose. It works 
in a mechanical way, but its construction can be explained 
only in terms of purpose. Teleology is not necessarily 
an external principle opposed to mechanism. It may be 
conceived as immanent in all natural processes, as includ- 
ing and transcending their merely mechanical aspects. 
From such a point of view the processes of the universe 
are describablc in terms of mechanical causation, but these 
scries of mechanical changes are what they arc by reference 
to their value for the whole. 

Again, we object to mechanism taken as the sole ex- 
planation of the universe on the ground that it fails to 
take into account many important facts of experience. 

" The Riddle of the Universe, p. 244. '♦ Cf. xbxd. Chap. XIII. 



26 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

Although supposed to be the direct outcome of an accept- 
ance of evolution, mechanism has been unable to give a 
satisfactory explanation of evolution itself. Furthermore, 
mechanism cannot explain the existence of values, pur- 
poses, and ideals and many other aspects of reality. 

Bergson, perhaps better than anyone else, has succeeded 
in proving the first of these points. In his careful exami- 
nation of theories of evolution, he shows that mechanism 
is forced to take refuge in a miracle whether to account for 
the successive production and preservation of millions of 
minute variations in the same direction, or to explain the 
complementary changes of the various parts of an organ 
necessary for the preservation and improvement of its 
functioning. Moreover, this same miracle must be re- 
peated innumerable times as the same change has taken 
place in many diflferent lines of evolution. ^^ Further- 
more, no explanation of evolution can dispense with such 
terms as adaptation, struggle for existence, etc., and these 
terms, so far from being purely mechanistic, imply pur- 
pose, ends, value. The mechanist holds that all achieve- 
ments of evolution are merely results of external and in- 
ternal forces, which are absolutely blind. Yet if such is 
the case, how can it be said that the organism struggles 
for existence.^ Haeckel himself, indeed, often finds a place 
for the action of internal forces of a psychical nature, 
declaring that the movement of molecules is due to an 
inner will. "Even the atom is not without a rudimentary 
form of sensation and will, or, as it is better expressed, of 
feeling and inclination — that is, a universal ^souF of the 
simplest character." ^^ The term "inclination " suits Haec- 
kel's purpose by its vagueness, but if it is at all comparable 
to will, it implies a reaching out into the future, which is 
not explicable as merely the result of a previous force. 
To do justice to this "inclination," Haeckel would be 
forced beyond the form of determinism which he espouses. 

^•^ Cf. Bergson, Creative Evolution, pp. 62-76. 
*« The Riddle of the Universe, p. 229. 



HAECKEL'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM 27 

The discussion of the inadequacy of mechanism as an 
account of evolution has led directly to our second criti- 
cism, namely, that mechanism fails to do justice to the 
existence of values and purposes. Such values are pres- 
ent not alone in our inner experience, but find concrete 
expression in the great achievements of civilization.^' 
Surely the painting of a great picture, the writing of a 
drama, or the founding of a college cannot be accounted 
for as the result of purely natural forces! The mechanist, 
of course, does not attempt to deny the presence and power 
of ideals in human life. His contention is simply that 
these ideals themselves are the result of purely mechanical 
forces, and work in a purely mechanical way. Against 
this claim the testimony of consciousness must be heard. 
The ideal may be due to preceding conditions of one sort 
or another, but it does not act upon us as an external 
compelling force. It is an ideal for us because it appeals 
to our own interests and purposes and we ourselves select 
it. This process of the selection of an ideal implies a 
reaching out to the future, a control, and an organization 
of life that are distinct from any processes found in the 
purely physical world and that cannot be described in 
mechanistic terms. ""^ 

Haeckel himself grows eloquent over the ideals of the 
good, the true, and the beautiful, and urges us to put these 
ideals before any false ideals promulgated by superstition. 
Such exhortations, however, have apparently little place 
in an absolutely mechanistic scheme, where each self is 
absolutely determined by his heredity and environment. 
Haeckel becomes indignant over what he regards as su- 
perstition, yet such indignation is surely not consistent 
with the recognition that all superstitions as well as the 
despised dualistic philosophy are, on his scheme, natural 
products, and are therefore as necessary as his own mo- 

*'' Cf. Bosanquet, The Value and Destiny of the Individual, pp. 109 ff. 
♦•For a clear analysis of the distinction between mechanical and 
personal determination, cf. Ward, Realm oj Ends, pp. 278 ff. 



28 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

nistic utterances. Furthermore, the ideals of the good, the 
true, and the beautiful must be, for Haeckel, purely human 
ideals, since no values exist for the universe. But if man 
himself has as little value as Haeckel gives him, purely 
human ideals can hardly be worthy of reverence and 
worship. 

A final word must be added to our criticism of mechan- 
ism. The theory of mechanism itself is not, as Haeckel 
must believe, a purely natural product. It is due to the 
organizing activity of man's intelligence, and could not 
exist without it. Haeckel regards this unifying and criti- 
cal faculty of man as due to the "concatenation of presen- 
tations." ^^ Yet the mere concatenation of presentations 
could never of itself lead to the criticism and combina- 
tion necessary to bring together these various constit- 
uents under the law of causation. This unifying of 
experience demands, as Eucken has so clearly shown, that 
man be able to separate himself from the chain of nature 
in order to combine and order the presentations of which 
he becomes conscious. Hence the formulation of the 
theory of mechanism is a fact which mechanism itself fails 
to explain, and the very existence of the theory is evidence 
of its own inadequacy as a final or complete explanation 
of the facts in the universe. 

We conclude, then, that Haeckel's categorical denial of 
freedom is not justified. In so far as Haeckel's view is 
representative of mechanistic determinism, our criticism 
affects not only his system but also the general mechanis- 
tic view. Hence our discussion serves to remove many 
objections commonly raised against the possibility of 
freedom, and thus clears the way for a consideration of 
the arguments of those who maintain the reality or at 
least the possibility of freedom. 

« Cf. The Riddle of the Universe, pp. I2l f. 



CHAPTER III 

JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 
I 

James pleads throughout his writings for a frank recog- 
nition of the part that temperament plays in the con- 
struction of philosophical systems. He never regards 
his own philosophy as a dispassionate and unbiased 
account of reality, but continually represents it as the 
expression of his own attitude toward the universe. Thus 
we receive many glimpses of the personality behind the 
work. If in Haeckel we discover a man blind to many of 
the facts of human experience, to whom freedom seems 
but an absurd superstition easily swept away, we find in 
James one who is profoundly interested in human life and 
who regards freedom as infinitely desirable. It is easy to 
discern some of the psychological motives that led James 
to this position. In the first place, his knowledge and ap- 
preciation of human nature were such as to make it impos- 
sible for him ever to assent to the view that all human 
experience is describable in terms of the motion of mole- 
cules. His moral vigor, moreover, led him to demand the 
recognition of the genuineness of human struggle. Again 
and again he insisted that life loses its dramatic quality 
and its significance if human activity has no part to play 
here and now in the destiny of the universe. James' 
sympathy and interest were not confined, however, to 
human nature; they went out eagerly to every aspect of 
the universe. He was scrupulous in his attempt to do 
justice to the particular character of every fact, refusing 
assent to any theory that reduced facts to general formulae 
in such a way as to rob them of their distinctive and novel 
aspects. As Dr. Lovejoy has so happily expressed it. 



30 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

"James was predestined by the possession of what may be 
called a particularistic mind to be a pluralistic philoso- 
pher." ^° A pluralistic conclusion, James believed, is indis- 
pensable for an acceptance of freedom. 

In keeping with his hatred of dogmatism, James makes 
no attempt to force his belief in freedom upon others. 
He does not claim to give a logically cogent demonstration 
of freedom but merely to show that determinism is not 
absolutely proved and that it is legitimate to accept, 
if we will, the fact of freedom. Indeed, he apparently 
rejoices over the lack of rigid proof, and is glad to leave 
the decision to the human will. As he puts it, "Our first 
act of freedom, if we are free, ought in all inward pro- 
priety to be to affirm that we are free." ^^ 

II 

In James' usage, the term "freedom" connotes radical 
contingency. In fact, James believes that, in view of 
the many different meanings and associations of the 
term 'freedom,' the term 'chance' might well be substi- 
tuted for it. So conceived, freedom implies discontinuity, 
novelty, and activity. These various categories are so 
closely connected in James' teaching that it is difficult 
to separate them, but it may conduce to clarity to con- 
sider them in independence of one another. 

Contingency is, as we have said, James' equivalent for 
freedom. In his opinion, the problem of freedom, com- 
plicated as it is by so many issues, can be narrowed down 
to the question whether contingency is real, i. e., whether 
genuine alternatives exist. To quote: "The question re- 
lates solely to the existence of possibilities, in the strict 
sense of the term, as things that may, but need not be." ^^ 
"Our sense of 'freedom' supposes that some things at 
least are decided here and now, that the passing moment 

5" International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 21, p. 137. 
61 The Will to Believe, p. 146. 
^^ Ibid. J p. 151. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 31 

may contain some novelty, be an original starting-point 
of events, and not merely transmit a push from elsewhere. 
We imagine that in some respects at least the future ma\^ 
not be co-implicated with the past, but may be really 
addable to it, and indeed addable in one shape or another, 
so that the next turn in events can at any given moment 
genuinely be ambiguous, i. e., possibly this, but also possi- 
bly that." 53 

Obviously this question of the reality of alternatives 
can never be settled by an appeal to facts, for experience 
can tell what happens — not what might have happened. 
The solution of the problem must depend then on other 
sorts of evidence. ^'^ At once rationalists pronounce the 
verdict that there can be but one answer to the question 
inasmuch as the existence of genuine alternatives is in- 
conceivable. This verdict is concurred in by scientists 
like Haeckel, on the ground of the universality of the causal 
law, and by absolutists because of the fact that, in a 
rational and logical system, each part must be conditioned 
by its relation to the whole. To both these sorts of deter- 
minists, James has two replies. First, the claim either of 
the universality of the causal law or of the necessary 
relation of every particular to the universe as a whole is 
not proved. Second, the rationality of the given act can 
be determined only after the act is performed. Before 
that time, the other alternative seemed equally logical. 
This latter argument of James does not, however, go to 
the heart of the rationalists' contention. Rationalists 
would admit without question that we cannot predeter- 
mine which alternative fits the requirements of the given 
situation, and that therefore our only test of the act's 
fitness lies in its actual occurrence. They would declare, 
however, that our inability was due solely to our igno- 
rance, and that this ignorance furnished no ground for a 

" ^ome Problems of Philosophy, pp. 139 f.; cf. also, Meaning of Truth, 
pp. 250 ff. 

" For this discussion, cf. The fVill to Believe, pp. 152 ff. 



32 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

denial of the necessary relation of the act to the past or to 
the whole, as the case might be. Such a denial, they 
would maintain, implies a lack of connection, a discon- 
tinuity, such as to defy thought. 

That contingency implies discontinuity is never ques- 
tioned by James, but he nevertheless has no hesitation in 
accepting it as a genuine fact. To those who declare 
discontinuity to be unthinkable, he replies in two ways: 
first, discontinuity does not involve the absence of all 
continuity; second, even if discontinuity were inconceiva- 
ble, this would not prove it unreal. Both these replies 
proceed clearly from James' opposition to abstractionism 
or "false intellectualism." 

The absolute opposition of continuity to discontinuity 
is due, James declares, to abstractionism. The concepts, 
it is true, are opposed, but this does not mean that objects 
may not, in different respects, be both continuous and 
discontinuous, just as a man may be both tall and short 
with reference to different objects. As a matter of fact, 
experience shows this to be the case. We find neither ab- 
solute continuity nor absolute discontinuity between sen- 
sations, but relations of various sorts and various degrees. 
These relations, in James' opinion, are given within ex- 
perience itself, and are no more mysterious than are any 
other of its facts. The relations actually experienced in- 
clude relations of mere "withness " and "nearness," as 
well as those of logical connection, and hence do not in- 
volve the rigid continuity of the universe. Experience, 
therefore, gives no warrant for an assertion either of ab- 
solute continuity or of absolute discontinuity, but dis- 
closes various sorts of continuity and discontinuity be- 
tween particular groups of phenomena. ^^ 

In the second place, the alleged inconceivability of dis- 
continuity, James insists, would not necessarily exclude 
its reality. This rather bald statement indicates James' 

" Cf. Radical Empiricism, pp. 95, 107. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 33 

general attitude toward conception. ^^ In his opinion, 
concepts are indeed useful and, in so far, valid instruments 
for the extension and understanding of experience. By 
their very nature, however, they are abstract and static, 
and so can never be regarded as a substitute for the rich- 
ness of immediacy. The final test of their validity lies 
always in the realm of perception. If they contradict 
perception, or make it less comprehensible, they must 
be rejected or refashioned. Experience overflows any 
conceptual account of it; "life is more than logic," and 
cannot be confined or subordinated to a system of con- 
cepts. The inconceivability of experienced discontinuity, 
therefore, is evidence, not of its unreality, but of the lim- 
itations of conception. To many such a contention seems 
the surrender of reason, and of any claim to a philosophy. 
Through it, however, James is at once freed not only from 
the difficulties of discontinuity but also from those con- 
nected with the problem of freedom and with other parts 
of his philosophical system. Indeed, James confesses that 
he puzzled over certain problems for years, and despaired 
of their solution, until finally, through the influence of 
Bergson, he had the courage once and for all to throw aside 
the old logic as incapable of stating the real nature of 
experience." 

Critics of James' view continually assert that the ad- 
mission of discontinuity brings with it a moral as well as 
a logical chaos. "If discontinuity is real," they claim, 
"there is no place for education and the development of 
character. A saint may commit murder, a man's closest 
friend may suddenly become his enemy, and no reliance 
can be placed upon the knowledge of character." James 
explicitly denies that such an absurd conclusion follows 
from his view.^ The criticism is due, he declares, to 

'*a. Some Problems of Philosophy, Chaps. IV-VI; cf. also The 
Meaning of Truth, Chap. XIII. 

'" Cf. // Pluralistic Universe, Lect. V, espcc. pp. 212-214. 
»" Cf. The JVxll to Believe, p. 157, note. 



34 



TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 



the old error of abstractionism. Discontinuity is supposed 
by the critic to mean absolute discontinuity; because some 
alternatives are open, all are supposed to be so. The crit- 
icism, moreover, fails to take account of the distinction 
between physical and moral possibilities. An act may be 
physically possible but morally impossible, e. g., it is phys- 
ically possible, but morally impossible for a normal 
mother to murder her child. In any given situation the 
number of moral possibilities is less than the number of 
physical possibilities, the former depending upon the 
habits and purposes of the self. Yet the nature of the self 
is not usually so fixed and determined that only one action 
is possible. In any case of genuine choice, several acts are 
so in keeping with the nature of the self, that they all make 
some appeal and are therefore genuinely possible. Which- 
ever act ensues is continuous with the nature and past 
experience of the self, though not necessitated by them. 
Hence discontinuity does not mean a break with the past. 
The past influences, although it cannot absolutely de- 
termine, the present and the future. 

Closely connected with the question of discontinuity 
is that of novelty. For James, novelty is a real aspect 
of experience which no difficulties of a conceptual sort 
should lead us to deny. That novelty exists in the exter- 
nal world might, James admits, be questioned; the new 
might in this case consist in a mere rearrangement of 
pre-existing parts. In the realm of human conscious- 
ness, however, the reality of novelty is, he maintains, 
incontrovertible. New sensations, new feelings, new con- 
cepts constantly arise. Since such immediate experiences 
can exist only as they are perceived, the actual felt novelty 
cannot be denied or be reduced to anything that is not 
immediately experienced.^^ The existence of such novelty, 
indeed, raises no problem for a view that accepts discon- 
tinuity in its description of the origin of being. According 
to such a theory, "time, change, etc., would grow by 
^3 Cf. Some Problems of Philosophy, pp. 149 ff. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOiM 35 

finite buds or drops, either nothing coming at all, or cer- 
tain units of amount bursting into being 'at a stroke.' " ^^ 
These "buds or drops" might indeed constitute absolute 
novelties, i. e., they might actually bring into the universe 
something that was in no wise there before. The reader 
will probably at once object that it is impossible to think 
of a particular fact thus arising out of nothing, and drop- 
ping upon us out of "the blue." This objection, however, 
is based on the old scholastic idea of causation and of 
continuity. James insists that the origin of being is al- 
ways inconceivable, and that the monist is here as badly 
oflF as the pluralist. He says, "if you are a rationalist you 
beg a kilogram of being at once, we will say; if you are an 
empiricist you beg a thousand successive grams; but you 
beg the same amount in each case, and you are the same 
beggar whatever you may pretend. You leave the logical 
riddle untouched, of how the coming of whatever is, came 
it all at once, or came it piecemeal, can be intellectually 
understood." ^^ Of course, the rationalist will insist that 
the coming into being of the universe as a whole is a false 
problem, since the categories of existence and time apply 
only to parts of the universe, not to the whole. To James 
this explanation is not satisfactory. He denies the right 
of the monist to assume the eternal nature of the whole, 
and declares that this assumption throws no light on the 
problem of the existence of temporal experience. How- 
ever, regardless of the merits of this question, James need 
not trouble himself about the conceivability of novelty 
and creation, since he has already proclaimed his release 
from the bonds of conception. 

Novelty is frequently held to be incompatible with cau- 
sation, but here again, according to our author, the diffi- 
culty has its origin in an overvaluation of conception. In 
the conceptual realm, causation does exclude novelty. Yet 
causation when treated conceptually is itself full of diffi- 

'^'^ Some ProbUms of Philosophy, p. 154. 
•' Ibid., p. 45- 



36 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

culties and contradictions, and becomes clear only when 
actually experienced. This actual experience of causation 
comes, James tells us, in our own activity situations. 
These activity situations he describes as follows: "In all 
of these what we feel is that a previous field of * conscious- 
ness,' containing the idea of a result, develops gradually 
into another field in which that result either appears as 
accomplished, or else is prevented by obstacles against 
which we still feel ourselves to press. . . . The experiencer 
of such a situation feels the push, the obstacle, the will, the 
strain, the triumph, or the passive giving up, just as he 
feels the time, the space, the swiftness of intensity, the 
movement, the weight and color, the pain and pleasure, 
the complexity, or whatever remaining characters the 
situation may involve. He goes through all that can ever 
be imagined where activity is supposed. The word * ac- 
tivity ' has no content save these experiences of process, 
obstruction, striving, strain, or release, ultimate qualia 
as they are of the life given us to be known. No matter 
what * efficacies ' there may really be in this extraordinary 
universe it is impossible to conceive of any one of them 
being either lived through or authentically known other- 
wise than in this dramatic shape of something sustaining 
a felt purpose against felt obstacles, and overcoming or 
being overcome." ^^ Activity as thus experienced is not 
in the least incompatible with novelty, for the result 
achieved contains new aspects not prefigured in the idea 
of the end to be attained. Hence the problem of the com- 
patibility of causation and novelty vanishes when both are 
treated perceptually. 

James' recognition of the reality of contingency, dis- 
continuity, novelty and activity, is in accord with his 
pluralistic view of the universe. He believes that reality 
exists distributively rather than collectively, and that it 
must therefore be described as "caches" and "everys" 

"2 Some Problems of Philosophy, pp. 210-212. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 37 

rather than as a whole. ^^ He recognizes, to be sure, man^ 
sorts of unity in the universe, e. g., unity of discourse, 
unity of time and space, unity of purpose, but maintains 
that there is no valid reason for asserting that the universe 
has the thoroughgoing and systematic unity of a logical 
system. ^^ Now this pluralistic view of the universe has, 
in James' opinion, several advantages over monism. It 
is more scientific and empirical since it attempts to de- 
scribe the concrete unities found in experience, rather than 
to reduce all to a mystic and abstract unity indescribable 
and unverifiable from the human point of view. It does 
justice to the temporal standpoint. Furthermore, it 
makes life interesting and dramatic by leaving room for 
freedom and activity. As this relation between pluralism 
and freedom is the point of especial interest for our pur- 
poses, I may be pardoned for quoting James' explicit 
statements. "The commonsense view of life as something 
really dramatic, with work done and things decided here 
and now is acceptable to pluralism. Free will means 
nothing but real novelty, so pluralism accepts the notion 
of free will." ^^ Although James himself is an ardent 
pluralist and libertarian, he does not, we must remember, 
regard pluralism as logically demonstrated. He insists 
only that an adoption of radical empiricism as the funda- 
mental method of philosophy precludes the acceptance of 
a monism that relegates many of the clearest facts of ex- 
perience to the realm of appearance. 

Thus far our discussion has centered about the logical 
implications of James' conception of freedom. We must 
now turn to an examination of the principal reasons offered 
by him in support of his belief in its reality. 

" Cf. A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 322 ff. 

"Cf. Some Problems of Philosophy, Chaps. VII and VIII; also cf. 
Pragmatism, Lect. IV. 

"^ Some Problems of Philosophy, p. 140, cf. pp. 142 ff. 



^S TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

III 

James' conviction of the reality of freedom rests prima- 
rily on moral grounds. In his essay entitled "The Dilemma 
of Determinism," he seeks to show that indeterminism 
alone can do justice to moral striving, inasmuch as any 
form of determinism leads inevitably to a denial of evil 
and of regret. Since this is his most important argument, 
it is worth our while to follow it in some detail. 

In the face of a moral catastrophe, the determinist, 
James maintains, may take either of two views. ^^ He 
may assert that the universe is good, and that therefore 
this act, in spite of all appearances, must be ultimately 
good; he may unflinchingly regard the act as absolutely 
evil, and conclude that a universe that necessitates such 
an act, must be evil. If he take the latter course, a taint 
of evil anywhere is a symptom of the corruption of the 
whole, and he is left in the darkness and despair of pessi- 
mism. On the other hand, if he take the former course, he 
is often compelled to stifle his moral sense, and to ignore 
the promptings of his whole moral nature. Furthermore 
even if he succeeds in so doing, a logical difficulty awaits 
him. If the act is good, as he declares, then any feeling of 
regret for the act is an error. Yet the regret is part of a 
rational universe, and as such cannot be irrational. The 
question then is, "how can a rational universe that in- 
cludes only good acts, have a place for regret.'*" Or, to 
put it otherwise, "how can an act be good and regret for it 
justifiable at one and the same time.?" 

The determinist boldly grasps the horns of the dilemma, 
and declares that it is true both that the evil act is a neces- 
sary element in the good, and that regret for the act is justi- 
fiable, since regret is one of the very means through which 
evil is transformed into good. Through sin and penitence, 
the individual is awakened to new ideals, and aroused to 
greater effort. By this means, both his knowledge and 

«« Cf. The Will to Believe, pp. 159 ff. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 39 

sympathy are increased. Thus the evil act becomes the 
source of greater power and is made an element in the 
good. Since the end of life is not merely external occur- 
rences, but rather the enrichment of personality, this effect 
of evil on the character of the individual may justify its 
existence. Indeed experience continually teaches us that 
evil is the price of the good, and that a universe without 
evil would be insipid. Thus James describes the deter- 
minists' reply to his dilemma. 

Although the determinist by this reply escapes pessi- 
mism, he falls into subjectivism. This subjectivism may 
be infinitely preferable to pessimism, and may be theoreti- 
cally acceptable; yet, James maintains, it has consequences 
that are disastrous to the moral life. It makes man a 
spectator of life, rather than an earnest participant. It 
declares that all life is for the sake of consciousness, so 
that man is free to sin as he please so long as he repents. 
It saps the vitality from the moral life, and perverts the 
plain dictates of man's moral consciousness, by turning his 
attention continually inward. James vividly and pictur- 
esquely describes its results thus: "The attitude of gnos- 
tical romanticism wrenches my personal instincts. ... It 
falsifies the simple objectivity of their deliverance. It 
makes the goose-flesh the murder excites in me a sufficient 
reason for the perpetration of the crime. It transforms life 
from a tragic reality into an insincere melodramatic ex- 
hibition as foul or as tawdry as any one's diseased curiosity 
pleases to carry it out." ^^ 

Determinists, however, would not assent to James' 
statement of their view and would utterly disown the 
consequences he derives from it. They do not say that 
life is for the sake of any finite consciousness, or that sin 
and regret arc justified merely by their effect on the in- 
dividual. Both sin and regret have their place in the 
whole, and cannot be understood apart from that whole. 
Both act and regret may seem evil — in fact the regret may 

" The Will to Beluve, p. 178. 



40 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

sometimes appear more disastrous than the act itself — 
yet both are necessary for the whole, and therefore both 
are good. Since the act is justified by its relation to the 
whole, and not exclusively by its relation to the individual, 
their view does not turn the attention inward, and is not 
necessarily subjectivistic. Furthermore evil is for them 
not merely illusory, but rather a tragic fact that can be 
overcome only by struggle and suffering. The genuine 
and tragic nature of this struggle precludes absolutely the 
trifling attitude indicated by the statement, "sin for the 
sake of repenting." Moreover, this very struggle and 
transcendence of evil are necessary elements in the per- 
fection of the whole and so are not dependent upon the 
subjective caprice of any finite individual. Finally their 
position does not, as James affirms, make man a mere spec- 
tator. Man's acts are indeed necessary, but they are 
necessarily performed by him and not apart from him. 
Man's decision is actually part of the universe, and the 
universe could not be the same without this decision. In 
spite of all this, however, the question remains as to how 
a perfection that is already complete can work itself out 
through man's moral and temporal strivings. Evil, 
although not merely illusory, is, nevertheless, according 
to the determinists' view, a necessary element in the per- 
fection of the whole, and as such ultimately good. Hence 
no determinist who is logical in his position can ever say 
of any element in the universe "this ought not to be," 
or of any of his own past deeds, " I ought not to have done 
it." Regret, then, in this sense, must be banished from 
the consciousness of a determinist, but with it goes much 
that is characteristic of the moral life. Determinists some- 
times attempt to avoid such difficulties by pronouncing the 
moral consciousness itself fragmentary and illusory, but 
such a course simply furnishes additional evidence in 
support of James' contention that determinism cannot do 
justice to the moral life. 

The determinist, James has tried to show, must ulti- 



JAMES' COXCEPTIOX OF FREEDOM 41 

mately accept either subjectivism or pessimism. The 
indeterminist, on the other hand, need adopt neither, and 
thus, in James' opinion, he escapes many moral difficulties. 
He can regard an act as absolutely evil, and yet keep free 
from pessimism, for some of the universe may be evil, 
while the rest remains untainted. There is always a possi- 
bility of evil; if there were not, life would be without zest 
and moral struggle impossible. The actual commission 
of evil, however, depends upon the will of the individual. 
If he chooses the evil, he brings into the universe something 
that need not and should not be there. The evil which he 
commits may, to be sure, become an element in the good. 
Such a transformation, however, does not, according to 
James' view, necessarily occur, but is contingent upon the 
will and courage of the individual. The universe is neither 
lost nor saved as a whole. Its fate lies in the hand of hu- 
manity, and other semi-independent forces. There can 
be no certainty about the future of society, no guarantee 
of the preservation of our most cherished ideals and values, 
for all depends upon the co-operation of individuals who 
may fail. Thus freedom brings a risk which may well 
make us pause. If the universe seemed absolutely good to 
us, we might indeed well decline to take this risk; but 
since many of its aspects seem evil, the risk is worth tak- 
ing. The chance which freedom brings is a chance for 
hope as well as for fear. It is a chance that, in spite of the 
existence of evils, individuals may, if they will, so change 
their own nature and the conditions of life, that society 
may be transformed and evil conquered. This view of the 
universe can appeal only to those who arc willing to take 
a risk, to venture on faith, trusting to human nature and 
to the goodness of higher powers, if there be such. It 
cannot satisfy those who demand absolute assurance that 
the causes for which they work will triumph in so far as 
they are good, and that all is eternally well with the uni- 
verse. To these, James offers some solace by his sugges- 
tion of the possible existence of a Providence that can 



42 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

counteract the effects of man's blunders, and safeguard 
the fate of the universe.^^ This suggestion, however, is 
so contrary to James' teaching concerning the momentous 
nature of human choice that we need not consider it here. 

The controversy between determinists and indeterm- 
inists often centers about the question of the ground for 
praise and blame. James, however, seeks to keep clear 
of this problem by insisting that the justification of praise 
and blame is without great significance for the moral life, 
and has little effect upon the problem of freedom. In 
his words, "To make our human ethics revolve about the 
question of 'merit' is a piteous unreality — God alone can 
know our merits, if we have any. The real ground for 
supposing free will is indeed pragmatic, but it has nothing 
to do with this contemptible right to punish which has 
made such a noise in past discussions of the subject." ^^ 
Although much may be said for this'position, it is pertinent 
to remark that after all the question of praise and blame 
is not far removed from the question of the validity of 
the feeling of regret which plays so large a part in James' 
own argument in The Dilemma of Determinism. Further- 
more, the question of praise and blame, connected as it is 
with the problem of responsibility, is of vital importance 
both from the point of view of individual morality and 
from that of the social order. Contingency, in the extreme 
form of the free will of indifference, does, it is true, so 
separate the act from the agent as to destroy responsibil- 
ity. Nevertheless, the acceptance of an element of con- 
tingency seems to be a necessary condition of the validity 
of the feeling of responsibility, since the feeling of responsi- 
bility for a past evil act carries with it the consciousness 
that we could have and should have acted otherwise. 

The persuasiveness of the argument for freedom on the 
ground of moral demands is enhanced for James by his 
conception of truth. He maintains that when objective 
evidence is lacking, as in the case of freedom, we have a 

«8 Cf. The Will to Believe, pp. i8o if. «9 Pragmatism, p. 1 18. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 43 

right to accept as true that theory which does most jus- 
tice to both the intellectual and moral demands. ^^ Few 
people would deny that we have a right to believe, if we 
choose, any theory that does not contradict the facts. 
Many, however, would refuse to go with the pragmatist 
in assuming that the satisfactory character of such a belief 
is evidence of its truth. Unless one does make this assump- 
tion, however, one cannot pass from the statement of the 
moral advantages of freedom to an assertion of its reality, 
until one establishes the fact that the constitution of the 
universe is such that reality necessarily satisfies man's 
needs. Hence unless we accept the pragmatic conception 
of truth, James' argument is not conclusive. However, 
the question of the validity of the argument for freedom 
does not seriously affect James' own position, for he is 
content to show that we have a right to believe in freedom, 
if we will, without arguing that this belief is necessarily 
true. Here, as in the realm of action, we must run a risk. 
Our belief may be true — James firmly believes that it is 
true — but it may conceivably be false. 

IV 

We may now briefly summarize the result of our dis- 
cussion and form some estimate of the significance of 
James' teaching concerning freedom. 

The principal value of James' discussion of freedom for 
the purposes of our study lies in its thoroughgoing nature 
— in its unhesitating acceptance of all the logical implica- 
tions of freedom. Thus, James shows that freedom a 
contingency involves activity, novelty, and real discontinu- 
ity. He regards these categories as real aspects of the 
universe, even though, by so doing, he is obliged to subor- 
dinate conceptual thinking to immediate experience. He 
believes that freedom in its most radical sense is real, but 
that a recognition of its reality necessitates the abandon- 
ment of the old logic and the return to immediacy. Fur- 
''' Cf. The fVill to Believe, pp. 11 ff., 145-146. 



44 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

thermore, James brings out clearly the necessary connec- 
tion between the acceptance of freedom as contingency 
and a pluralistic view of the universe. 

The greatest defect of James' doctrine arises from his 
complete identification of freedom with contingency. 
Although contingency is, we believe, a necessary element 
in freedom, it by no means follows that it is its complete 
equivalent. It is clear that the mere presence of contin- 
gency in the universe at large affords no guarantee for the 
reality of specifically human freedom. As Perry expresses 
it, "Indeterminism in this general pluraHstic sense con- 
tributes nothing toward proving human freedom. Such 
indeterminism attaches to man no more than to any other 
part of reality. It would be perfectly consistent with it 
that man should be less free than the planets. It proves 
that existence makes strange bed-fellows, and that the 
course of events is surprising. But it does not endow man, 
the moral agent, with any unique share in this disjunction 
and novelty; nor with any peculiar power to direct it or 
profit by it. There is an element of chance in life, but it 
is as likely to be the mishap of which man is the victim, as 
the opportunity of which he is the matter." ^^ Ethical 
freedom, indeed, demands more than the mere presence 
of alternatives. The self-expression which it implies might, 
in one situation, be possible if only a single course of ac- 
tion were open, while, in another situation, it might be 
impossible although many alternatives were open. The 
question of the relation of ethical freedom to indetermi- 
nateness, is thus analogous to the old question of the rela- 
tion of positive to negative freedom, and we must admit 
that merely negative freedom cannot insure the presence 
of positive freedom. Hence the reduction of the problem 
of freedom to the question of contingency undoubtedly 
robs it of many valuable aspects. 

In conclusion, we must admit that a summary can never 
do justice to the richness and concreteness of James' 
"^^ Present Philosophical Tendencies, p. 253. 



JAMES' CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 45 

teaching. Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions, 
one cannot fail to be stimulated by his writings. By re- 
fusing to take refuge in abstractions, he calls one back 
continually to the concrete world of experience. By em- 
phasizing moral demands, he keeps one from a merely 
intellectualistic interpretation of the universe. By his 
robust courage, he challenges one to act bravely and 
faithfully as though free, even if one cannot by his intellect 
alone prove the reality of freedom. 



CHAPTER IV 
bergson's conception of freedom 

I 

When we turn from the consideration of James' concep- 
tion of freedom to that of Bergson, we are impressed at 
once by significant points of similarity between the two 
doctrines. For Bergson as for James, freedom impUes 
the reahty of time, of creation, and of novelty. For him 
also, freedom is directly revealed in our experience of ac- 
tivity, and the assertion of its reality brings with it a criti- 
cism of the role of conception and a reliance upon im- 
mediacy. Nevertheless, in spite of such likenesses, there 
are also genuine differences in the two teachings. The 
anti-intellectualistic tendency leads, in Bergson's case, 
not to ordinary empiricism, but to an insistence upon 
intuition as distinct from ordinary perception. Thus, 
Bergson maintains that freedom is revealed in intuition 
alone, and is falsified by perception as well as by concep- 
tion. Again, concrete duration as described by Bergson 
has certain characteristics not ascribed to time by James. 
Finally, Bergson's intuitive apprehension of continuity 
throughout the universe leads him to a denial of ulti- 
mate individuality and thus to a view quite opposed to 
James' radically pluralistic teaching. These points of 
agreement and of disagreement, however, will become 
clearer as we proceed with our study of Bergson's dis- 
cussion of freedom. 

In a Report of the French Philosophical Society, Berg- 
son has described his conception of freedom as follows: 
"The word liberty has for me a sense intermediate between 
those which we assign as a rule to the two terms liberty 
and freedom. On the one hand, I believe that liberty 



BERGSON'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 47 

consists In being entirely oneself, in acting in conformity 
with oneself; it is then, to a certain degree, the 'moral 
liberty' of philosophers, the independence of the person 
with regard to everything other than itself. But that is not 
quite this liberty, since the independence I am describing 
has not always a moral character. Further, it does not 
consist in depending on oneself as an effect depends on the 
cause which of necessity determines it. In this, I should 
come back to the sense of 'free-will.' And yet I do not ac- 
cept this sense completely either, since free-will in the usual 
meaning of the term, implies the equal possibility of two 
contraries, and on my theory we cannot formulate, or 
even conceive in this case the thesis of the equal possibil- 
ity of the two contraries, without falling into grave error 
about the nature of time. I might say, then, that the ob- 
ject of my thesis, on this particular point, has been pre- 
cisely to find a position intermediate between 'moral 
liberty' and 'free-will.' Liberty, such as I understand it, 
is situated between these two terms, but not at equal 
distances from both. If I were obliged to blend it with one 
of the two, I should select 'free-will.' ^^ Bergson declares, 
in this passage, that "liberty is situated midway between 
the two terms," yet he seems to oscillate between the two 
ideas rather to harmonize them, and his compromise is 
beset with many difficulties. This criticism must of course 
be supported by a careful examination of the meaning 
which he attaches to these conceptions, and of their im- 
plications in his philosophy. Before turning to this ex- 
amination, however, we must note that Bergson also 
identifies freedom with spontaneity or creation. This 
latter usage is, indeed, more characteristic of his teaching 
than cither of the above, and therefore claims our first 
consideration. Since freedom in all three senses is, by our 
author, regarded as revealed directly in our intuition of our 
own life we shall first examine these conceptions with rcf- 

^- Report of the French Philosophical Society. Quoted fn^m LcRoy, 
The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, p. 192. 



48 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

erence to human experience, and then direct our attention 
to the relation of human freedom to the vital impetus. 

II 

Bergson declares again and again that duration involves 
ceaseless creation, spontaneity, and novelty. As he ex- 
presses it, "The more we study the nature of time, the more 
we shall comprehend that duration means invention, the 
creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the abso- 
lutely new." ^^ Or again, "as soon as we are confronted 
with true duration, we see that it means creation." ^^ 
This identification of creation with duration depends upon 
Bergson's belief that memory is involved in real duration. 
The presence of memory insures a continuance of the past 
in the present. For this reason alone each moment is 
quahtatively different from every preceding moment.^^ 
Hence wherever there is memory, as is the case with 
duration, there is creation in the sense of genuine novelty. 
As Bergson says, "For a conscious being, to exist is to 
change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on 
creating oneself endlessly." ^^ If, however, one is unwilling 
to assent to Bergson's view that duration in itself involves 
memory, one cannot accept his statement that the reality 
of time by itself furnishes any ground for the certainty of 
creation. ^^ It will therefore be less misleading to keep 
the terms "creation" and "duration" distinct, without 
losing sight of the fact that creation and novelty demand 
the reality of time, although they are not reducible to it. 

The acceptance of the reality of creation enables one, 
Bergson believes, both to understand the source of the 

" Creative Evolution, p. ii. 

''^Ihid., p. 343. 

'^ Cf. An Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 12 ff. 

'^ Creative Evolution, p. 7. 

" For a clear statement of this point, cf. A. O. Lovejoy, Bergson and 
Romantic Evolutionism, The University of California Chronicle, Vol. 
XV, no. 4, pp. 441 ff. Cf. also Stewart, Critical Exposition of Bergson's 
Philosophy, pp. 216 ff. 



BERGSON'S CONXEPTION OF FREEDOM 49 

difficulties in the usual statements of the problem of free- 
dom, and to escape from all forms of determinism. Thus, 
he applies his view of creation to the position of physical 
and of psychological determinism, and to the problems of 
causation, contingency, and prediction. His arguments 
here are so well known, that the briefest summary will 
suffice for our purpose. 

In the first place, the recognition of the creative char- 
acter of human nature shows that physical determinism, 
based as it is on the law of the conservation of energy, 
cannot be valid in the case of human experience. ^^ That 
law has meaning only where changes are reversible, and 
such cannot be the case in the conscious life where each 
moment depends upon the past and yet adds something 
to it. In the second place, the intuition of creative dura- 
tion discloses the fallacy of psychological determinism.^^ 
This doctrine is based either upon some form of psycho- 
physical parallelism or upon an associationist view of 
mind. Now, according to Bergson, the former is incom- 
patible with the actual facts of memory and is, moreover, 
inherently contradictory; the latter completely falsifies 
the continuity of the self as revealed in the intuition of its 
real duration and creation. 

Furthermore the intuition of duration or, as we would 
rather say, the intuition of ceaseless creation in time, 
furnishes a means of attack upon that stronghold of de- 
terminism, the principle of causation. According to the 
principle of mechanistic causation, we may affirm that a 
given cause is always followed by a given effect. Now 
this principle, Bergson maintains, is merely a generaliza- 
tion based upon the observation of uniform sequences in 
nature. As such, it can lay claim to no necessity. More- 
over, intuition shows that causation in the sense just 
discussed can have no meaning for the psychic realm. In 
this realm no uniform sequences can be discovered, since 
no moment can ever be repeated. The statement, then, 

" Cf. T^me and Free JVUl, pp. 143 ff. ^^ Cf. i^jV., pp. 155 fT. 



50 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

that if the same cause recurs the same effect must follow, 
is absolutely devoid of significance when applied to the 
conscious life. ^^ Nevertheless, Bergson teaches, causa- 
tion possesses another meaning, such that it is genuinely 
applicable to the conscious realm. For, like James, he 
maintains that the real nature of causation is revealed to 
us in our experience of effort. In this experience, we find 
that the future springs from the present, and is prefigured 
in it, though not absolutely necessitated by it. This ac- 
tual experience of effort exhibits creation at work, and in 
no sense precludes the reahty of freedom. Thus, neither 
sort of causation, when clearly analyzed and understood, 
can furnish any reason for doubting the fact of freedom. ^^ 
The difficulties in regard to contingency also arise, ac- 
cording to Bergson, from a failure to grasp the real nature 
of time and of creation. ^^ Both indeterminists and de- 
terminists make the mistake of picturing the decision of 
the self as an oscillation between several fixed alternatives. 
When the question is regarded in this way, the victory, 
Bergson says, must go to the determinists, since the fact 
that the self finally chooses one way is evidence that it 
could not choose in any other. ^^ Yet the fact of indecision 
still remains as evidence of the truth of the indeterminists' 
claim. This indecision is explicable, Bergson believes, not 
in terms of pre-existing alternatives, but of the growing 
and changing self. What we call alternatives are really 
tendencies and directions within the self, continually 
changing and developing through the process of choice. 
As our author expresses it, "deliberation. . . . really con- 
sists in a dynamic progress in which the self and its mo- 
tives, like real living beings, are in a constant state of 
becoming." ^^ 

80 Cf. Time and Free Will, pp. 199 ff. 

81 Ibid., pp. 201 ff. 
^^Ibid., pp. 173 ff. 

83 Ibid., p. 180; cf. above, p. 31. 
8^ Ibid., p. 183. 



BERGSON'S CONXEPTIOX OF FREEDOM 51 

The intuition of creation is utilized by Bergson to show 
the impossibility of prediction in human affairs. ^^ In the 
material world, prediction is possible, for time is not opera- 
tive. In the human realm, on the contrary, time is real 
and brings with it creation; hence no knowledge of ante- 
cedents can make prediction possible. Furthermore, the 
complete knowledge of the antecedents themselves in- 
volves a knowledge of their place in the process that issues 
in the act, and since the time of this process cannot be 
altered without altering its character, the antecedents 
cannot be known completely until the act occurs. Hence 
there can be no possibility of /or(?-knowledge. Now this 
rather radical doctrine of Bergson's is undoubtedly open 
to many objections. If it is true that one cannot know an 
act without living through the actual time consumed by 
the act itself, then knowledge of the past would seem to be 
as impossible as knowledge of the future, for the memory 
which reviews the act never occupies the same time as the 
original act. Bergson, it is true, might meet this objection 
by declaring that the past, in so far as it has been lived 
through, has become a "thing" which is capable of being 
known and represented without being lived through a sec- 
ond time. Yet the fact that memory, in this case, con- 
tracts the original duration without altering its character, 
certainly contradicts Bergson's assertion that duration 
cannot be changed without a change in the character of 
the process. Furthermore, it is by no means clear how, 
on Bergson's theory, duration, even when past, can be- 
come a spatialized "thing." Bosanquet has objected to 
Bergson's denial of prediction on the ground that, although 
the action of a self cannot be reduced to a mere result of 
antecedents and predicted in the fashion of an eclipse, yet 
foreknowledge of the self's action is by no means impossi- 
ble. ^^ Such foreknowledge depends upon the identifica- 

" Cf. Timf and Free fVill, pp. 183 ff. 

*• Cf. Bosanquet, Prediction of Human Conduct, Int. Jnl. of Ethics, 
Vol. 21, pp. 14-15. 



52 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

tion of oneself with the Hfe of another self in such a way as 
to understand his desires and purposes. Foreknowledge, 
moreover, becomes easier the more that life is organized 
and unified by a controlling purpose. Obviously, there is 
much to be said for this contention, and Bergson himself 
would admit that, in such a case, a probable prediction is 
indeed possible. His quarrel with the assertion, however, 
would arise from his insistance that, since time is real, 
the purpose of the self is never given complete at any mo- 
ment of time. This purpose itself grows and expands 
with the creation of the self and cannot, therefore, be the 
basis of an absolute prediction of the action of even the 
most rational self. 

Before turning to Bergson's other usages of the term 
"freedom," it may be convenient to summarize, in a 
sentence or two, the result of the foregoing discussion. 
Bergson teaches that duration itself is creative, and that 
freedom, in the sense of real creation or spontaneity, is 
characteristic of all life that endures. This position, he 
believes, affords an escape from most objections that are 
raised against the reality of freedom. While such an 
identification of time and creation is, as we have seen, 
unjustifiable, nevertheless it remains true that the recog- 
nition of the reality of time clears the way for the asser- 
tion of freedom and discloses the untenability of many of 
the determinists' contentions. 

The second meaning which, as we have noted, Bergson 
attaches to freedom is that of indeterminateness or con- 
tingency. At first sight there appears to be little difference 
between this conception and the one which we have just 
discussed. In fact, our examination of James' philosophy 
has shown that both indeterminateness and spontaneity 
are essential elements of freedom. Yet, Bergson's descrip- 
tions of freedom in these two senses disclose not only a 
clear distinction in meaning, but also, in some cases, a 
radical inconsistency between the two, which makes it 
confusing to identify freedom with both. In discussing 



BERGSON'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 53 

freedom as creation, Bergson distinctly disavows the 
possibility of conceiving freedom as choice between alter- 
natives. Freedom as indeterminateness, however, is de- 
scribed as dependent upon the existence of alternatives. 
On the one hand, Bergson declares that alternatives are 
never given beforehand, and that the nature of time pre- 
cludes the possibility of foreseeing different possible 
courses of action; on the other hand, he says that freedom 
involves anticipatory images, and that "possibilities of 
action must ... be marked out for the living being before 
the action itself." ^^ It must be remarked, however, that 
the contradiction is perhaps not so glaring as this com- 
parison of passages might suggest. Bergson would un- 
doubtedly admit the possibility of foreseeing different 
paths of action, while maintaining that these alternate 
paths were not fixed and definite but grew and changed 
throughout the process of the decision of the self. There 
remains, however, a more deep-seated inconsistency. 
Freedom as creation or as real duration is fundamentally 
of the nature of the unconscious, or, better, of the supra- 
conscious, ^^ while freedom as indeterminateness depends 
upon consciousness and is measured by it. ^^ Thus, Berg- 
son says of memory (which is for him equivalent to free 
creative spirit) that "from the moment that it becomes 
image, the past leaves the state of pure memory and coin- 
cides with a certain part of my present. Memory actual- 
ized in an image differs, then, profoundly from pure 
memory." '•'^^ The whole past life of the self exists as pure 
memory in a state of unconsciousness, and becomes con- 
scious only because of the demands of action. Now it is 
just in this zone of action that freedom as indeterminate- 
ness plays its role, and here consciousness is indispensable. 

" Creative Evolution, p. 96. 

"Cf. ibid., pp. 46, 176 f. 

*5 Cf. ibid., pp. Ill, 144, 179, 262 ff.; Matter and Memory, pp. 182, 

233, 304- 

'*' Matter and Memory, p. 181. 



54 



TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 



In Bergson's words, "the chief office of consciousness is 
to preside over action and to enlighten choice." ^^ "Ei- 
ther sensation has nothing to do, or it is nascent free- 
dom." ^^ "Consciousness corresponds exactly to the liv- 
ing being's power of choice; it is co-extensive with the 
fringe of possible action that surrounds the real action; 
consciousness is synonymous with invention and with 
freedom." ^^ A further diflPerence between freedom as 
indeterminateness and freedom as creation lies in the 
fact that the former admits of degrees and in its highest 
degree is the prerogative of man alone, while the latter is 
characteristic of all life. Man's indeterminateness is 
secured, according to Bergson, by means of his complex 
nervous structure, by the possession of language and the 
demands of society.^^ In this respect, then, language and 
social life are regarded by Bergson as conducive to freedom, 
although, according to many other of his expressions, 
they tend to work against freedom and to reduce man to 
an automaton.^^ 

The third and most restricted meaning which Bergson 
gives to freedom is that of complete self-expression. In 
describing this sort of freedom, Bergson declares, in con- 
tradiction to his later assertion that freedom involves 
choice and the anticipatory ideas of various actions, 
that "freedom must be sought in a certain shade or quality 
of the action itself and not in the relation of this act to 
what it is not or to what it might have been." ^^ The free 
act "agrees with the whole of our most intimate feelings, 
thoughts, and aspirations, with that particular conception 
of life which is the equivalent of all our past experience, in 
a word, with our personal idea of happiness and of honor."^^ 

91 Matter and Memory, p. 182. 

92 Time and Free Will, P- 34- 

93 Creative Evolution, pp. 263 f. 

94 Cf. ibid., pp. 264 f. 

95 Cf. Time and Free Will, pp. 129 ff. passim. 
90 Ibid, pp. 182 f. 

97 Ibid., p. 170. 



BERGSON'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 55 

Such acts, Bergson maintains are exceptional." ^^ They 
occur only in times of crisis, when the true self bursts 
through the fetters of habit and of merely external ideas 
and expresses its real nature. It is at this point that Berg- 
son makes use of his distinction between the fundamental 
and the purely psychological self. ^^ The former is pure 
duration, while the latter is the result of the materializa- 
tion or automatization of the self through the influence 
of social life and the demands of action. This psychologi- 
cal self is the external projection of the real self — its spa- 
tial and social representation. Unlike the fundamental 
self, it is describable in terms of the laws of association, 
and is not free. 

Xow the question arises as to whether this doctrine of 
the two selves, and of the rarity of genuinely free acts, 
is in keeping with Bergson's teaching concerning duration 
and creation. If duration is by its very nature creative, 
if memory goes on ceaselessly, how can it ever happen 
that we fail to be free, or that we "become spatialized".^ 
Bergson says explicitly, ''''Every psychological state re- 
flects the whole personality." ^°° "The whole of our past 
psychical life conditions our present state, without being 
its necessary determinant; whole, also, it reveals itself in 
our character, although no one of its past states mani- 
fests itself explicitly in character." ^^^ "Doubtless we 
think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our 
entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we 
desire, will, and act." ^^^ "In action, the entire person is 
engaged." ^°^ But, if these statements are accepted, it is 
clear that the free act cannot be exceptional, since all acts 
are a reflexion of the whole self. The distinction, then, 

•* Time and Free Will, PP. 167, 240. 

»«Cf. ihid., pp. 163 ff., 129 ff. 

'0^ Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 25 (Italics mine). 

•°' Matter and Memory, p. 191. 

'"' Creative Evolution, p. 5. 

"" Laughter, p. 143. 



56 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

would lie not between free acts and those which are not 
free, but between acts which we consciously regard as 
free and those of whose freedom we remain unconscious. 
A hint in this direction may be found in the distinction 
which Bergson makes between the time in which we act 
and the time in which we see ourselves acting. He says, 
"The duration wherein we see ourselves actings and in which 
it is useful that we should see ourselves, is a duration whose 
elements are dissociated and juxtaposed. The duration 
wherein we act is a duration wherein our states melt into 
each other. It is within this that we should try to replace 
ourselves by thought, in the exceptional and unique case 
when we speculate on the intimate nature of action, that 
is to say, when we are discussing human freedom." ^^^ 
From the point of view of this teaching, then, we may say 
that we always act with our fundamental self, so that all 
our acts are free as expressions of our whole personality, 
but that we sometimes fail to apprehend this freedom and 
therefore describe our activity in the inadequate terms 
predicable of the psychological self. 

A further inconsistency between Bergson's description 
of freedom as complete self-expression and his teaching 
concerning freedom as creation, arises from the fact that 
sometimes Bergson implies that the former depends upon 
the activity of judgment or reflection. Thus, he tells us 
that external ideas and feelings are " the result of an 
education not properly assimilated, an education which 
appeals to the memory rather than to the judgment." ^'^^ 
He specifically declines to regard free activity as reducible 
to mere spontaneity, saying that "in man the thinking 
being, the free act may be termed a synthesis of feelings 
and ideas, and the evolution which leads to it a reasonable 
evolution." ^^^ Now, in so far as Bergson makes room for 
the activity of reason, and places judgment above memory 

^^^ Matter and Memory, pp. 243 f. 
105 Time and Free WilU P- 166. 
i°9 Matter and Memory, p. 243. 



BERGSON'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM S7 

and above the processes of spontaneity, he is going in the 
direction of orthodox idealism. Furthermore, if the evo- 
lution of the free act is, as Bergson says, a rational evolu- 
tion, rationality must be found within the unconscious 
depths of the soul, since the fundamental self has, ac- 
cording to Bergson's view, far deeper roots than appear in 
consciousness. Yet this positing of rationality below the 
conscious life is certainly quite antithetical to Bergson's 
anti-intellectualistic tendencies. We must, therefore, con- 
clude that while Bergson's teaching sometimes suggests a 
kinship to the familiar idealistic doctrine of freedom as 
rational self-determination, its general trend lies in quite a 
different direction. The whole self of which he speaks is 
not the self as a rational, purposive being, but the entire 
history of the self, carried on by memory, and growing 
as it progresses. This self is, he declares, revealed in in- 
tuition. Yet intuition, as a matter of fact, seldom dis- 
closes anything which could even by courtesy be called a 
whole. It discloses rather a complex of conflicting tenden- 
cies and purposes, a jumble and a chaos which can hardly 
be said to express itself complete in any single act. In- 
deed, the fundamental difliculty with this aspect of Berg- 
son's teaching lies just here, in his failure to give any clear 
conception or explanation of individuality. When we 
study his words closely, we find, moreover, that the self's 
individuality tends to be completely lost in the life of the 
vital impetus. Says he: "The living being is above all a 
thoroughfare, . . . the essence of life is in the movement by 
which life is transmitted." ^^' "Thus souls are continually 
being created, which, nevertheless, in a certain sense pre- 
existed. They are nothing else than the little rills into 
which the great river of life divides itself, flowing through 
the body of humanity." ^^^ But if this be the case, the 
significance of human individuality and of human freedom 
seems to vanish, and we are left with the problem of the 

^'^^ Creative Evolution, p. 128. 
»<» Ibid., pp. 269 f. 



58 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

nature of the vital impetus and of its relation to human 
selves. 

In the foregoing analysis of Bergson's various concep- 
tions of freedom, we have attempted to bring out the dis- 
tinctions between them as sharply as possible. In so doing 
we have perhaps neglected certain relationships. A 
justification for this procedure lies in the fact that these 
relationships come out most clearly when the conceptions 
are regarded, not in themselves or as characteristic of 
man's experience, but rather as stages in the creative evo- 
lution of the vital impetus. To this consideration, then, 
we turn. 

Ill 

The vital impetus is, for Bergson, ceaseless creation and 
growth, and the story of evolution is but the record of 
creative activity. ^^^ In its creative activity, however, the 
vital impetus is constantly beset with obstacles. From 
its struggle with these obstacles results its dissociation 
into the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and into different 
species and different individuals. Furthermore, in en- 
deavoring to conquer matter, life is forced to adapt itself 
to matter, and, by so doing, imperils its own freedom. 
Hence, on many lines of evolution, freedom seems to be 
completely lost and life to be conquered by matter. In 
man, however, life prevails, and succeeds in making matter 
the vehicle of freedom. ^^^ Yet even here the victory is 
not complete. Man constantly tends to become an au- 
tomaton, and only certain of his acts are free. Thus, 
freedom as creation or spontaneity is characteristic of 
the vital impetus as such. Freedom as indeterminateness 
is the means and the measure of the success of the vital 
impetus in its effort to express freedom. But even inde- 
terminateness does not insure full expression of the crea- 
tive life. An adequate embodiment of such creative 

103 Of. Creative Evolution, pp. 251 if. 
^^^ Ibid., pp. 264-267. 



BERGSON'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 59 

activity is found only in those rare acts which are the out- 
come of the whole enduring and growing process of the 
fundamental self. Such, very roughly, is the way in which 
we may relate Bergson's different conceptions of freedom. 
By no means, however, does this account resolve all the 
difficulties which we have raised in regard to their com- 
patibility. Moreover, it has difficulties of its own which 
we must now face. 

One of the most deep-seated of these difficulties lies in 
the problem of the relation of the vital impetus to neces- 
sity. Necessity is due to the presence of matter or of space, 
but Bergson's conception of matter is by no means clear. 
Sometimes he makes matter equivalent to space, and ap- 
parently regards it as a second principle of reality co- 
ordinate with life.^^^ On the other hand, he sometimes 
regards it as merely a different direction in the stream of 
the vital impetus — a descending current due to life itself.^^- 
But if this be the meaning of matter, it is hard to see what 
could have caused the original arrest in creative activity, 
for before the creation of matter there could have been 
no obstacle to freedom. There seems to be no reason why 
life itself should have posited its own ineradicable foe. 
Again, Bergson teaches that matter differs from life only 
in the rate of its duration, and that the quantitative and 
homogeneous spatial nature which we attribute to matter 
is but a construct of the human intellect. ^^^ Here again 
there would seem to be no cause for conflict. If life con- 
structs the idea of space for its own purposes, surely this 
construct can be dropped whenever it conflicts with life. 
Yet, unless matter remains as a genuine opposing principle 

'"He holds to this view pretty consistently throughout Time and 
Free Will. His teaching here issues in a distinct dualism between con- 
sciousness, which is purely qualitative and enduring, and matter, 
which is spatial and quantitative. For a clear statement of the par- 
allelism between this view and Fichte's problem, sec E. L. Schaub, 
HegeVs Criticism of Fichte's Subjectivism, Phil. Rev., 1913, p. 30. 

'•^Cf. Creative Evolution, Chap. HI. 

'*• Cf. Matter and Memory, pp. 244 fl., 278 ff. 



6o TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

to life, creation ceases, for dissociation, through which 
creation proceeds, depends upon the existence of obstacles. 
Moreover, the nature of the vital impetus itself is not 
wholly clear. Bergson declares that it somewhat resem- 
bles voluntary activity, and his descriptions of it abound 
in terms taken from the realm of volition. Thus, he 
speaks of its "striving," "effort," "success," "failure," 
etc. However, his distrust of teleology prevents him from 
carrying out this analogy in a thoroughgoing manner, 
and many of his expressions concerning the vital impetus 
indicate that its activity is more akin to merely sentient 
and irrational spontaneity than to rational purposive 
volition. ^^^ If this is the case, the following criticism of 
Balfour's is indeed in place: "Creation, freedom, will, 
these doubtless are great things, but we cannot lastingly 
admire them, unless we know their drift. In his philoso- 
phy, superconsciousness is so indeterminate that it is not 
permitted to hamper itself with purpose more definite 
than that of self-augmentation. It is ignorant not only 
of its course, but of its goal, and for the sufficient reason 
that in M. Bergson's philosophy these things are not only 
unknown but unknowable." ^^^ Bergson, however, need 
not go to the length of this conclusion. He must deny that 
the vital impetus has a complete knowledge of the future, 
since on his principles such foreknowledge is incompatible 
with the reality of time, but he need not deny that the vi- 
tal impetus is genuinely purposive, and is guided by ideas 
of the future which grow and develop as creation proceeds. 
If Bergson does not accept some such measure of teleology, 
his principle of vital activity becomes practically equiva- 
lent to a blind and irrational force hardly describable as 
analogous to will. 

In raising the question of the nature of the vital impetus, 
we have taken for granted its unity and individuality. 

11^ For his denial of teleology, see Creative Evolution^ pp. 39 ff. 
"5 Creative Evolution and Philosophic Doubt, Hibbert Journal, Vol. 
X, p. 23. 



BERGSON'S CONXEPTION OF FREEDOM 6i 

Yet the vital impetus as described by Bergson is not in- 
dividual in the sense of a harmonious whole or an organized 
self. It is merely a vague continuity of life which disso- 
ciates itself into separate centers through conflict with an 
opposing force. Its harmony is in its origin rather than in 
its goal and its tendencies become more and more diverse 
and conflicting as it proceeds. ^^^ Yet life that is thus dis- 
sociated apparently issues in a plurality rather than a 
unity, and forfeits its claim to be individual in any signifi- 
cant sense. An acceptance of this plurality of individual 
centers of life would seem to lead logically to such a form 
of pluralism as would leave place for the genuine freedom 
of separate living beings but would preclude the unity and 
individuality of the vital impetus. Bergson, however, is 
kept from such a conclusion by his insistence upon the 
"continuity of the real." He is thus led to a kind of 
monism in which finite freedom and individuality are sub- 
merged in the flux of the cosmic life.^^^ Doubtless he 
would tell us that our difficulties here arise from our look- 
ing at the problem abstractly. He would assure us that 
if only we would immerse ourselves by intuition in the 
concrete duration of the vital impetus, we would see that 
that duration is genuinely one and also genuinely many. 
But the value of this reply depends upon the value which 
is placed upon intuition. It therefore necessitates a very 
brief glance at the role of intuition in Bergson's philosophy. 
In Bergson's opinion, intuition ofi"ers the only satisfac- 
tory approach to reality. ^^^ By its means, apparently all 
problems may be solved, and reality experienced in its in- 
most nature. Hence, Bergson maintains, intuition must be 
the method of philosophy. Now it is, of course, undoubt- 
edly true that intuition (at least in the sense of an immedi- 
ate contact with reality) is indispensable for philosophy, 
^'et the reliance upon intuition alone is fraught with grave 

"• Cf. Creative Evolution, p. 51. 

'"Cf. xbid., p. 128. 

^^^ Introduction to Metaphysics; Creative Evolution, pp. 238, 343. 



62 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

dangers. Coupled as it is in Bergson's own case with a 
distrust of conception, it seems ultimately to involve an 
uncritical acceptance of any fact or any feeling reported 
by an observer who is confident that he has succeeded 
in immersing himself in reaUty. Bergson, of course, 
denies any such implication. He says that intuitions 
must be criticized and worked over if they are to be 
made part of a philosophy. ^^^ Nevertheless, it is difficult 
to see how such criticism is possible if the intellect in its 
analytic activity actually falsifies reality. Intuition is 
regarded by Bergson as a form of knowledge, and is some- 
times contrasted as "knowledge acted" with "knowledge 
represented." As a matter of fact, however, it is doubtful 
whether intuition, as he described it, has any right to be 
called knowledge. Many of his accounts indicate that 
at the moment of intuition, the subject is lost in the object, 
the cognitive element vanishes, and knowledge is replaced 
by either action or feeling. It is certainly misleading, 
therefore, to identify intuition with knowledge proper. 
As one of Bergson's critics says, "Knowledge in any of 
its degrees, is not and cannot without self-extinction be- 
come identical with being. It is being reflected in and for 
a rational mind; and philosophy is not life, but the at- 
tempted interpretation of life by means of reflective 
intelligence." ^^^ 

IV 

Our concluding paragraphs may profitably serve to 
crystallize the results of our discussion. We first consid- 
ered Bergson's teaching concerning freedom with refer- 
ence to human activity, and found three distinct meanings 
given to the term. Of these, creation or spontaneity is 
probably the most fundamental in Bergson's philosophy. 
The value of his discussion of this conception lies in his 
emphasis upon its relation to the reality of time. While 

11^ Cf. Creative Evolution, pp. 191 ff. 

^20 Stewart, Critical Exposition of Bergson's Philosophy , p. 245. 



BERGSON'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 63 

this aspect of his philosophy is by no means unique, we 
may nevertheless safely say that nowhere else do we find 
a more emphatic assertion of the reality both of time and 
of creation, or a more thoroughgoing consideration of the 
objections to freedom which proceed from a failure to take 
into account the fact of time. 

Freedom as indeterminateness likewise involves the 
reality of time. As characteristic of living centers of ac- 
tion, it points to a genuine pluralism. This conclusion, 
however, is precluded for Bergson by his emphasis upon the 
continuity of all centers of life with the vital impetus. 
By this emphasis, he is led to adopt a sort of monism — 
though a monism very different from that of absolutism. 

Bergson's conception of freedom as the reflection of 
the whole personality resembles in many respects the fa- 
miliar view of freedom as self-determination, or (as Berg- 
son himself expresses it) of "moral freedom." Bergson 
is prevented, however, from doing justice to this concep- 
tion through his distrust of teleology and of reason, and 
through his lack of appreciation of individuality. This 
conception of freedom can be brought into harmony with 
his view of freedom as spontaneity only by a denial that 
any particular act is more free than another. Hence, 
Bergson's account of freedom, like that of James, fails to 
provide for rational freedom. 

The account of the relation of freedom to the vital im- 
petus we have also found to present difficulties. The vital 
impetus is declared to be essentially free and creative, yet 
Bergson's description of this creative activity is by no 
means clear. He tells us that creation depends upon the 
conflict of freedom with necessity but fails to explain 
intelligibly or consistently the origin and meaning of 
necessity. His marvellously skilful use of images enables 
him to suggest to us the nature of the vital impetus, yet 
he leaves unanswered many important questions concern- 
ing its real nature. Is it conscious or unconscious, per- 
sonal or impersonal, a unity or a plurality? Is its activity 



64 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

analogous to a material force, to an irrational and merely 
sentient impulse, or to purposive volition? Bergson 
apparently regards the vital impetus as ultimately indi- 
vidual, but we have seen that this individuality is scarcely 
compatible with his denial of organization and harmony 
as regards its divergent tendencies. Furthermore, al- 
though Bergson declares that its activity is most com- 
parable to voHtion, we have found that his rejection of 
rational purpose keeps him from really describing it as 
such. 

Of course, analysis inevitably fails to do justice to a 
philosophy which is founded upon intuition, and which 
explicitly disavows any pretence of system or complete- 
ness. Bergson's writings abound in brilliant flashes of 
insight which stir the reader's imagination and carry him 
to the center of the problem at issue. Yet, since intuition 
alone is not a safe guide for philosophy, the affirmation of 
freedom on the ground of intuition cannot in itself afford 
a satisfactory philosophic solution of the problem. 



CHAPTER V 

FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 
I 

Bergson and James alike confidently affirm the reality 
of freedom in the sense both of contingency and of spon- 
taneity. Neither of these thinkers, however, gives an 
adequate analysis of freedom as peculiarly characteristic 
of rational and purposive selves. In this respect, a useful 
supplement to their discussions may be found in the 
teaching of Prof. James Ward. For Ward, freedom is 
primarily a character of personal agents. ^-^ Hence the 
problem of freedom, in his opinion, centers about the 
nature of self-determination. While self-determination 
does, to be sure, imply contingency, it is the contingency 
of freedom that is implied, as distinct from the contingency 
of mere chance.^-- For this reason, the usual controversy 
between determinists and indeterminists fails to do jus- 
tice to the real significance of the problem of freedom. 

In this interpretation of freedom as pre-eminently 
personal. Ward represents the general attitude of per- 
sonal idealists. His discussion, particularly in The Realm 
of Ends, is of interest, therefore, not only because of its 
own significance, which is great, but also as a clear expres- 
sion of the view of freedom held by those who approach 
the problem from the point of view of a philosophy based 
upon a recognition of the nature and value of personality. 

An account of Ward's doctrine of freedom may con- 
veniently deal in turn with the following three points: first, 
the conception of freedom entertained and the arguments 
advanced in its behalf; second, the contention that frce- 

'»' Cf. Tht Realm of Ends, p. 272. 

'" Cf. ibid., pp. 454 f., Supplementary note i; Naturalism and 
Agnosticism, 4th edition, pp. 614 ff. 



66 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

dom is characteristic of all parts of the universe; third, 
the relation of freedom to theism. Ward's conception of 
freedom, as has already been indicated, is thoroughly 
representative of personal idealism, and would be accepted 
almost in its entirety by all advocates of this position. 
His panpsychism and his theism, on the other hand, would 
not meet with the same agreement. The latter, however, 
is of especial importance for our purpose, since no discus- 
sion of typical views of freedom would be complete with- 
out some consideration of the problem from the point of 
view of religion. 

II 

To make clear the meaning of freedom as self-determi- 
nation Ward employs the method of contrast. In the first 
place, he contrasts self-determination with mechanical 
determination, efficient and final causation with mechani- 
cal uniformity, the historical view-point with that of 
science — in a word "the realm of ends" with "the realm 
of nature." In the second place, in truly Kantian fashion, 
he contrasts the noumenal with the phenomenal, and dis- 
tinguishes the standpoint of the subject from that of the 
object. 

The first contrast may be illustrated by the ambiguity 
of the very word "determination." ^^^ We say that we 
are 'determined' to carry out a certain project; we say 
also that the motion of a body is 'determined' by various 
forces. To use Ward's example, we say that a traveller 
is determined to go on his way in spite of wind and dust, 
while we say also that the movement of the particles of 
dust against which he struggles is determined by the wind. 
Obviously 'determined' has a diflferent meaning in the 
two cases. This difl^erence our author expresses as follows : 
"In the first case determination implies efficient causa- 
tion, self-direction and purpose: 'it does not imply any 
uniformity such that in all like circumstances a like de- 

i2» Cf. The Realm of Ends, pp. 277 ff. 



FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 67 

termination always has recurred and always will. In the 
second case, on the other hand, this is precisely what is 
implied; whereas here nothing is implied as to efficient 
causation; also self-direction and purpose are either denied 
or treated as meaningless." ^^^ 

We should not fail to note Ward's careful discrimination 
between the different causal terms. ^-^ In essential agree- 
ment with Bergson he states that, in the realm of activity 
from which the concept was originally derived, causation 
implies both efficiency and purpose. Both of these 
meanings, however, have been excluded by science in its 
application of the concept to the natural world. In this 
realm causality is regarded as neither active nor purposive 
but simply as observed uniformity. So understood. Ward 
says, mechanical causation involves neither empirical 
nor logical necessity; we never experience the "propter 
hoc" but only the "post hoc" in nature, and logic reveals 
no reason why phenomena succeed one another in a given 
way. Thus, the necessity which the scientist attributes 
to mechanical causation and to the uniformity of nature 
is merely a methodological postulate. Hence, mechanistic 
theory is unjustified in transforming this postulate into a 
statement of the fundamental nature of the universe and 
in attempting on this ground to prove the unreality of 
efficient and purposive causation. 

Similar to the ambiguity of the term * determination' 
is that of the word ' direction. '^^^ Direction in the physi- 
cal world is purely spatial and is absolutely determinate; 
direction in the human realm, on the other hand, repre- 
sents control, guidance, and a relation of wills. Here 
again is manifest the contrast between the purely spatial 
world of the scientist and the world of history, comprising 
the activity of personal agents. Science presents us with 
a realm of mechanical necessity, void of individuality, 

'^' The Realm of Ends, p. 278. 
'" Cf. ibid., pp. 273 ff. 
•'« Cf. ihid., pp. 280 ff. 



68 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

novelty, creation, and guidance. History, on the other 
hand, is a report of individual initiative and of the occur- 
rence, through freedom, of new achievements and new con- 
quests. 

Determinists, however, deny that this difference, which 
prima facie seems so fundamental, is ultimate. They 
insist that the determination found in the realm of ends, 
is reducible to a form of the mechanical determination 
present throughout the realm of nature. Such a reduction, 
however, involves a careful examination of volition, and 
this analysis, Ward believes, shows only the more clearly 
the untenability of the determinists' claim. 

Determinists declare that volition is the result of a 
conflict of motives. In a given situation, choice is deter- 
mined by motives just as the movement of a body is 
determined by the forces acting upon it; a like necessity 
prevails in both cases. Now, though there is doubtless 
a certain superficial similarity between the play of motives 
and the action of forces, the differences between them are 
so fundamental that the comparison loses its significance. 
These differences are brought out so clearly by Ward, 
that his statement may be quoted in full. " Forces, though 
distinct, combine their effects only because they converge 
on one body: motives, though distinct, conflict only be- 
cause they diverge, so to say, from one subject. The 
forces, that is, are applied to the body, the motives spring 
from the subject. The body moves in the one path which 
the forces collectively determine, the subject moves in the 
one path which it selectively determines. The magnitude 
of a force is referred to an objective standard, the strength 
of a motive depends on its subjective worth: the sufficient 
reason is in the one case mechanical, in the other it is 
teleological." ^-^ In view of such fundamental differences 
as these, it is clear that the composition of mechanical 
forces can throw little light on the process of volition. 

,127 The Realm of Ends, p. 285. 



FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 69 

The dispute about the relation of motives to choice is 
due, as a matter of fact, to a failure to realize that motives 
exist only for the self. Both determinists and indeter- 
minists. Ward believes, make the mistake of thinking of 
motives apart from the self. Hence the indeterminist 
sometimes feels compelled to assert that the self decides 
without a motive — an assertion flagrantly untrue to expe- 
rience — while the determinist declares that the action of 
the self is necessarily determined by the strongest motive 
and is therefore not free. The truth, Ward maintains, is 
that the self does decide in the direction of the strongest 
motive, but that the self is nevertheless free since the 
motive is but an expression of the self's own nature. The 
determinist may retort, "In that case, the nature of the 
self must determine the act." In this assertion Ward 
acquiesces, but maintains that it in no wise involves a 
denial of freedom. ^-'^ The determination of the self by 
its nature is, he declares, identical with self-determina- 
tion, since the nature is one with the self. Furthermore, 
such determination does not imply the necessity of any 
single act at a given time, for the self is never so fixed and 
limited in its nature that only one act is possible. Thus, 
according to Ward, the self may be said to determine its 
act, and to be the cause of its act, but it is also free since 
determination and causation do not, in the human realm, 
imply either necessity or uniformity. The fallacy of sep- 
arating the self from its nature rests ultimately, in his 
belief, upon an associationist view of mind. Such a view, 
however, he declares to be a caricature of the real nature 
of mind. No justification may be found for speaking of 
nature or motives apart from the self. "To talk of motives 
conflictingof themselves is as absurd as to talk of commodi- 
ties competing in the absence of traders." ^-'-^ Indeed, the 
absurd consequences which result from carrying out a 
mechanistic view of mind to its logical conclusion is, Ward 

>-^ Cf. The Realm of Ends, pp. 286 ff. 
'" Ibid., p. 290. 



70 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

declares, "an indirect proof of the reality of that self- 
determination which we directly experience." ^^^ 

We must turn now to the second contrast, which Ward 
draws, that between the subject and the object. For 
him as for idealists generally the subject-object relation 
is the central fact of experience. Naturalistic thinkers 
so emphasize the object that they commonly lose sight of 
the fact that the object is known only in reference to the 
subject. Yet the world as object is. Ward believes, phe- 
nomenal, and as such is not self-existent, but is grounded 
in the noumenal order. To make clear his thought of the 
dependence of the phenomenal upon the noumenal, he 
reminds us of Lotzes' figure of a tapestry. ^^^ The pattern 
of the tapestry is the result of the activity of the weavers. 
Relations may be traced between the figures pictured 
there, but such relations throw not the least light upon 
the relation of the tapestry as a whole to the activity of 
the weavers by whom it was produced. Similarly the laws 
of causation apply only to relations within the phenomenal 
order, but cannot describe the relation between the nou- 
menal and the phenomenal. Thus, noumenal causation 
is absolutely independent of phenomenal necessity, and 
is therefore free. In passing, we may note that, although 
Ward's account of noumenal causation is founded upon 
Kant's teaching, he differs in his insistence that noumenal 
causation is genuinely temporal. Like Bergson, Ward 
teaches that time is absolutely real and that concrete time 
which is flowing must be distinguished from time which 
is past. Like Bergson also, he maintains that concrete 
time has not been taken into account by necessitarians. 
As he expresses it, ''The necessitarian position . . . rests 
on the assumption that phenomena are the whole; that 
there is, in other words, nothing but filled time: whence 
and how time is filled, it does not enquire." ^^^ Since this 

130 The Realm of Ends, p. 291. 
»" Ibid,, pp. 302 f. 
132 Ihid., p. 307. 



FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 71 

assumption is unfounded and even contradictory, the 
necessitarian arguments are not conclusive. 

The question of determinism cannot be so easily dis- 
posed of, however, since determinists of the absolutistic 
creed are still to be reckoned with. They would indeed 
agree, in a large measure, with Ward's refutation of 
mechanism, and would assent to his statement that there 
is a significant difference between saying that an act is 
determined by the self and saying that an act is deter- 
mined for the self. Their point of opposition would bo 
that rational self-determination necessarily precludes 
contingency, and that each act of the self is what it is by 
reference to its relation to the whole. What, then, ha 
Ward to say with reference to this position? Part of h; 
answer has already been suggested in the preceding para- 
graph. It is that such a view precludes the recognition 
of the reality of time. Furthermore, in his belief, absolu- 
tists or monists of any sort inevitably lose the many in 
their exaltation of the one.^^^ They start with unity and 
attempt to derive the many from it, but in this attempt. 
Ward insists, they never succeed. Now whether or not 
the universe is ultimately one, at all events experience 
presents us with a plurality which we cannot deny. Wo 
have, our author maintains, a direct experience of human 
activity, human individuality, and human choice, and 
we have no right to throw aside these facts because of a 
desire for unity. ^^* If absolutism were established, the 
denial of freedom would necessarily follow, but, since it 
is not proven, we need not sacrifice to it our experience 
of freedom. Whether or not this is an adequate statement 
of the relation between absolutism and freedom will be 
clearer after an examination of Bosanquet's discussion of 
the problem. For the present we merely note Ward's 
contention that determinism is justified neither by mech- 
anism nor by absolutism. 

>"Cf. The Realm oj Ends, Lecture II. 
'»* Cf. ibtd., pp. 309, 351 f. 



72 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

The foregoing discussion has shown that Ward, in es- 
sential agreement with James and Bergson, teaches that 
freedom implies novelty, spontaneity, and contingency. 
The distinct contribution of his conception lies in the 
emphasis which he lays on personal individuality and on 
purpose, and in his careful analysis of volition. The 
distinction which he draws between personal determina- 
tion and mechanical causality would be satisfactory, in 
general, to most of those who recognize the reality of per- 
sonality. There would be more difficulty, however, in 
regard to his statements concerning the relation between 
the phenomenal and the noumenal. His view that the 
phenomenal world is the product of the independent 
activity of a pluraUty of free selves does not altogether 
succeed in accounting for the actual uniformity which 
prevails in the world and which makes possible the success- 
ful use of the principle of mechanical causation. Indeed, 
the recognition of this uniformity and harmony in nature 
forces Ward himself, as we shall see, to supplement plural- 
ism with theism. Again, it might be objected that there 
cannot be any ultimate contrast between the teleological 
and mechanical orders, inasmuch as the subject can, in 
Ward's opinion, become object, and so cannot as subject 
have a character absolutely incompatible with its character 
as object. This objection, however, loses force when we 
recall that the category of mechanical causation is not for 
our author ultimately valid, and that there may be more 
in the subject self than is ever presented in its character 
as object. 

Ill 

Although freedom is regarded by Ward as pre-eminently 
characteristic of personal agents, its range is by no means 
limited to the human realm. Through his interpretation 
of all reality by the subject-object relation, he concludes 
that, as the subject may become object, so ultimately 



FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 73 

the object represents subject. ^^^ This view is rendered 
plausible for Ward both by his acceptance of continuity in 
nature and by the discovery of individuality in even the 
inanimate world. Moreover, the view is not, as one might 
at first suppose, incompatible with a recognition that na- 
ture exhibits laws. These laws are statistical in character, 
and say nothing concerning the spontaneity and varia- 
bility of the subjects involved. These subjects are not, 
according to Ward, absolutely separate or unrelated en- 
tities — "monads without windows" but are interrelated 
in many complicated ways, and constantly influence one 
another in varying degrees. By their conflict and co- 
operation they create new meanings and thus give rise to 
a process of evolution. Hence their existence is compati- 
ble with the reality of actual novelty and creation. As 
Ward says, "To the pluralist, the so-called evolution of 
the world is really epigenesis, creativ^e synthesis; it implies 
continual new beginnings, the result of the mutual conflict 
and co-operation of agents, all of whom, though in varying 
degrees, act spontaneously or freely. For the pluralist, 
in short, these agents are themselves creative." ^^^ A view 
of this sort, then, has a place for the recognition of the 
reality of time such as is incompatible with any philosophy 
that regards evolution as mechanically determined, or 
as the self-differentiation of the eternal. 

While the question of the ultimate validity of Ward's 
panpsychism is undoubtedly of great interest, it does not 
intimately concern our problem, inasmuch as freedom in 
the human realm is not dependent upon its existence in 
other realms. Furthermore, Ward's conception of free- 
dom, gained as it is from human experience, is as clear 
and as significant if it can be attributed only to human 
beings, as if it could be predicated of all parts of the 
universe. 

»»Cf. Thf Rfalm of Ends, Lcct. III. 
'" Ibid., pp. 270 f. 



74 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

IV 

We come now to the question of the relation of freedom 
to theism. Ward bases his theistic belief on the fact that, 
although pluralism is theoretically tenable, it nevertheless 
points beyond itself to some unifying principle or ground. 
At its lower level, pluralism seems to issue in mere inde- 
terminateness which needs a prime mover; at its upper 
level, it points beyond a plurality of wills and purposes to 
an Ideal which unifies the purposive activity of all. More- 
over, the very fact that individuals co-operate as they do 
and build up such remote and complex trains of relation- 
ship indicates that they are not an absolute plurality but 
are connected through their relation to a single Ground. 
As Ward expresses it, "A plurality of beings primarily in- 
dependent as regards their existence, and yet always mu- 
tually acting and reacting upon each other, an ontological 
plurality that is yet somehow a cosmological unity, seems 
clearly to suggest some ground beyond itself. The idea of 
God presents itself to meet this lack." ^^^ 

God as the Supreme Ground of the World, Ward main- 
tains, is immanent in the world and yet transcends it. 
The world which is constituted by the plurality of selves 
owes its very existence to God; these selves have never- 
theless a measure of independence and freedom of their 
own. This relationship between God and the world is 
what Ward designates as "creation." ^^^ Creation, in his 
opinion, does not signify a temporal relation, but rather 
the logical relation of dependence. God's creative activity 
is, he declares, comparable not to the relation of the potter 
to his clay, but to the begetting of life by life, or better 
still, to the artist's creation of a masterpiece. The work 
of art owes its existence to the artist, and is a partial ex- 
pression of his mind; nevertheless it has a freedom and 
individuality of its own which the artist must respect. 
That this relation between the artist and his work may 

1" The Realm of Ends, p. 241. ^^^ Cf. ibid.. Lecture XL 



FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 75 

serve as a suggestive, though a rough, analogue of the re- 
lation of God to His world, may be granted. As Ward 
himself realizes, however, the analogy breaks down at 
several important points. In the first place, the relation 
described is temporal. The artist creates his work at a 
given moment of time; after that time his creation exists 
through itself, relatively independent of the fate which 
may befall the creator. The world, on the contrary, 
continually depends for its existence on God. Moreover, 
the artist works in a medium which he does not create, 
while God creates absolutely. The failure of the illustra- 
tion is inevitable, since no human and finite analogue can 
ever give an adequate conception of the Divine nature. 
Creation is a transcendent idea, and can therefore never 
be fully apprehended by the finite mind. As Ward con- 
fesses, how God acts, hozv God creates we can never know, 
yet this, he contends, does not entitle us to deny His 
activity. 

But is the view of creation just outlined compatible with 
the genuine freedom of finite selves.^ Ward admits that 
prima facie the two seem incompatible, yet he maintains 
that this incompatibility is not absolute. God is great 
enough to create actual creators. ^^^ Such creation does, 
to be sure, involve a genuine limitation of God. Since 
this limitation is willed and created by God Himself, 
however, it does not detract from His greatness, but 
rather enhances it.^"*^ Furthermore if the existence of 
freedom seems to conflict with God's attributes of omnis- 
cience and omnipotence, these attributes must be surren- 
dered, for we have no apriori knowledge of God's nature 
from which we can deduce the character of the universe. 
Thus Ward maintains that God is not omnipotent, if omni- 
potence excludes man's freedom. He is not omniscient, if 
omniscience includes a -knowledge of the future, since such 
knowledge would involve a denial both of time and of 

'"Cf. The Realm of Ends, p. 271. 
•*o Ibid.y pp. 243 ff. 



76 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

freedom. ^"^^ Deterministic theologians have held that 
God can foreknow a man's acts through His complete 
knowledge of man's nature. Yet such prediction would 
also demand a knowledge of the whole future course of 
events, and the possibility of such knowledge is precluded, 
in Ward's opinion as in Bergson's, by the reality of time. 
Furthermore, man's nature is not a given entity that can be 
known completely at any one moment of time. As Ward 
says, "Surely if there is an empirical commonplace be- 
yond dispute, it is this, that no man knows beforehand 
even his own possibilities completely, to say nothing of 
those of another." ^^^ This changeable aspect of man's 
nature finds a conspicuous expression in such experiences 
as cases of sudden conversion, but it is also characteristic 
of man's ordinary development. Since this change is not 
merely apparent but real, foreknowledge is impossible 
even to the Infinite Mind. In spite of this fact, however, 
God is not left a victim to surprise or disappointment, 
since He Himself knows the limitations within which the 
finite moves. Thus, Ward does not ascribe to God such 
absolute ignorance of the future as Bergson predicates of 
the vital impetus. 

There are undoubtedly many difficulties in Ward's 
reconciliation of freedom with theism. In his endeavor 
to make God both transcendent and immanent, he often 
seems to waver between a deistic and an absolutistic 
position. On the one hand, his insistence upon the free- 
dom of finite selves, seems to demand their complete sepa- 
ration from God. On the other hand, his affirmation of the 
relation of all finite selves to a single Supreme Ground 
seems to lead away from pluralism toward an absolutistic 
position, and thus, on his own premises, to endanger his 
assertion of freedom and individuality. If God is, as 
Ward afiirms, the logical ground of all finite selves, 
does not He Himself so work through them that their 

1^1 Cf. The Realm of Ends, pp. 294 ff. i" /^,-^.^ p. 298. 



FREEDOM AND PERSONAL IDEALISM 77 

activity is ultimately His? God, Ward maintains, as- 
signs talents which individuals use or misuse. ^"^^ Yet 
the very power or will which uses or misuses talents 
is grounded in God, and so would seem to be ultimately 
His. To this sort of criticism, Ward might reply by 
emphasizing once more the reality of the many. He 
would declare that we must maintain the characteris- 
tics actually found in the many, and content ourselves 
with postulating the ideal to which the unity in experience 
points. If this ideal seems incompatible with these char- 
acteristics, we may assume that this incompatibility is 
due to the limitation of our apprehension of a transcend- 
ent idea. Creation, if true, cannot be incompatible with 
the actual experience of personality and freedom, and we 
understand its significance so little that we are in no posi- 
tion to state its logical implications. 

Now this recourse to the inconceivability of creation 
cannot, of course, be satisfactory from the logical point 
of view, as it cannot solve the difficulties in regard to the 
relation between man's freedom and his dependence upon 
God. Yet it is worth while to note in passing that a view 
like Ward's seems to accord better with the demands of 
religion and morality, than does either extreme pluralism 
or absolute monism. It meets the demands of our moral 
nature, inasmuch as it places the responsibility for evil 
squarely upon finite selves, and yet offers a rational ground 
for confidence in the final triumph of the good. It satisfies 
religious demands by making God the supreme ground of 
all life, without denying to his creatures the individuality 
and freedom which give significance to their obedience, 
sacrifice, worship, and love. 

We conclude our discussion of Ward's doctrine of free- 
dom by re-affirming that the chief value of this doctrine 
lies in its emphasis upon personality. Since the problem 
of freedom concerns primarily the activity of personal 

•♦» Cf. The Realm of Ends, p. 315. 



78 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

agents, it cannot be adequately dealt with apart from a 
consideration of personality. Furthermore, the recogni- 
tion of the value and meaning of personality is absolutely 
indispensable for any view of freedom that pretends to 
do justice to the ethical aspect of the problem. 



CHAPTER VI 
bosanquet's conception of freedom 

I 

In his recent GifFord lectures, Bosanquet expresses a 
view of freedom which may be regarded as representative 
of the doctrine of absolutists generally. This view differs 
almost in toto from the conceptions which we have just 
been discussing. James, Bergson, and Ward all alike re- 
gard freedom as spontaneity and novelty, and look for it 
in the discontinuity and contingency of the universe. 
Bosanquet, on the contrary, maintains that freedom is 
completely rational, and that it is possible only in a logical 
and coherent universe. Far from searching for evidence 
of contingency or of discontinuity, he welcomes the evi- 
dence for law, asserting that a gap or break in the continu- 
ity of the universe would imperil freedom. In opposition 
to Bergson's assertion that freedom is essentially inde- 
finable, Bosanquet affirms that it is possible to describe 
its real nature. He declares that it is "the nisus to the 
whole, the epw9 or spirit of union which is at once logic 
and love;" ^^* "the passage of a being or content beyond 
itself;" "ideality, adjustment." ^^-^ Or, again, he de- 
scribes it as the characteristic of "a world which reshapes 
itself in virtue of its nature and that of its contents, and, 
in doing so, extends its borders, and absorbs and stamps 
itself upon something that before seemed alien." ^^^ 

The bare statement of these descriptions of freedom may 
have served to indicate Bosanquet's position. Our next 
task is to present his view more clearly, and in more detail. 

'** Thf Value and Destiny of the Individual, p. 9. 
*** The Principle of Individuality and Falue, p. 60. 
»*• Ibid., p. 66. 



8o TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

We shall then be in a better position to discuss certain 
difficulties which seem to inhere in his teaching concern- 
ing the freedom of finite selves. In conclusion, we shall 
consider briefly freedom as characteristic not of the finite 
but of the Absolute. 

II 

For Bosanquet, freedom is one with the principle of the 
logical coherence of the whole. It is the dialectic process 
immanent in reality itself according to which each part 
ultimately transcends itself and seeks to identify itself 
with the whole. This self-transcendence is found, more- 
over, in every pulse of experience, in feeling and will as 
well as in logical thought. ^^^ Inasmuch as freedom con- 
sists in this very process of self-transcendence, it can never 
be found in any sort of immediacy. Hence Bosanquet 
opposes uncompromisingly the tendency of James, Ward, 
and Bergson, to find freedom in the immediate, and to 
exalt immediacy above conceptual thinking. ^^^ In his 
opinion, life is not more than logic; on the contrary, logic 
is the revelation of the true meaning of life, and is there- 
fore higher than mere life. Freedom then is not given in 
the merely immediate, but is an expression of the rational 
process at the very heart of reality. 

Bosanquet's teaching of the complete rationality of 
freedom leads him to deny to it the least implication of 
contingency or of discontinuity. This, however, does not 
imply a rejection of spontaneity, since, in his opinion, 
law does not rest upon the repetition of similar elements, 
but is the systematization of many diverse elements into 
a logical whole. ^^^ Causation, then, in this sense, is the 
very condition both of freedom, and of purposive activity. 
In his words, "Where there is (or appears to be) dis- 
continuity, as tested by these characteristics of an in- 

^^^ Cf. The Principle of Individuality and Value, pp. 59 ff. 
''^ Ibid., pp. 13 ff. 
'« Ibid., pp. 91 ff. 



BOSANQUET'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 8l 

telligible whole, there inevitably is (or appears to be) 
pro tanto a gap in the embodiment of spiritual purpose and 
significance. A purpose is not realized, it is not a reality 
as penetrating and vivifying a mass of content, if it is not 
affirmed continuously and traceably in a coherent struc- 
ture. No purpose or significance can be realized through 
miracle." ^^° Hence the reality of a completely unified 
whole is, for Bosanquet, the necessary condition of the 
reality of freedom as characteristic of purposive agents. 

This conception of the relation of freedom to the whole 
of reality is fundamental to Bosanquet's discussion of the 
will and power of the finite self. In his opinion, the will 
itself is not an abstract principle or an empty form opposed 
to nature but is rather a part of nature "come alive." ^^' 
It is molded by the environment; yet in so far as it ac- 
quires a nature of its own, it can react upon the environ- 
ment and determine what it can or will accept. However, 
the will can never separate itself from its environment; 
both its content and its power depend upon its relation to 
the whole of reality. Its content is found in those great 
social embodiments of will, civilization, and society. Such 
achievements are, indeed, the best proof of the reality 
of will or of spiritual power. They depend, to be sure, 
upon finite selves; yet, on the other hand, finite selves 
come to their full expression only through participation 
in the social whole. As Bosanquet says, "We are finding 
ourself in the world, as the world comes to life in our- 
self." '-^2 ^\x\s intimate relation between the finite self 
and the larger world is, moreover, the source of any power 
that the finite self can possess. Through it, he is enabled 
to have insight into the nature both of himself and of the 
problem which confronts him, and this insight is the 
necessary condition of his power. To be sure, Bosanquet 
recognizes that "courage, resolution, decision" arc also 

•*<* The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 141. 

'*' Cf. The Value and Destiny 0/ the Individual, Lectures III and IV. 

'»»/W., p. 113. 



82 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

conditions of the power of will, but he emphasizes the 
fact that all of these can achieve their results only through 
insight, and that this insight depends upon the relation 
of each fact or aspect of reaUty to the whole. Hence 
freedom, in the sense of the power of the finite will is, for 
Bosanquet, rooted in the systematic unity and harmony 
of the Absolute. 

This view of freedom may be made clearer, and fresh 
light on the whole problem may be gained, Bosanquet 
believes, by an examination of artistic creation. Here the 
issue is clear. Does such creation consist in pure sponta- 
neity and novelty, or is it completely rational — the revela- 
tion of the deeper meaning inherent in reality itself.^ *The 
latter is, of course, Bosanquet's own view. In opposition 
to thinkers like Bergson and James, he maintains that 
creation consists not in the production of novelty, but 
rather in the expression of the rational process immanent 
in reality. Thus, the imagination is creative when it is 
penetrative, rather than when it is originative, and its 
highest task lies in the discernment and embodiment of 
the fundamental significance of reality. As Bosanquet 
expresses it, "If it (the imagination) is ^creative,' it is 
so because profound penetration reveals positive treasures 
beyond the scope of the average mind; not because it 
deviates into paths of arbitrary fantasy. In short, then, 
all logical activity is a world of content reshaping itself 
by its own spirit and laws in presence of new suggestions; 
a syllogism is in principle nothing less, and a Parthenon 
or * Paradise Lost' is in principle nothing more." ^^^ In 
passing, it is of interest to note that, in spite of profound 
differences, this view of creation has a point of agreement 
with the teaching of Bergson. Bergson likewise insists 
that the artist or the creative thinker must get at the heart 
of reality itself and trace its movements and process, fin- 
deed, it is precisely for this reason that he regards intuition 
as indispensable. He, however, differs fundamentally 
^" The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 333. 



' 



BOSAXQUET'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 83 

in the description which he gives of the reality thus re- 
vealed. He affirms that reality is absolutely inexplicable 
in conceptual terms; Bosanquet, on the contrary, main- 
tains that it is the very incarnation of logic. 

The description of artistic creation as the expression of 
the rational process of reality discloses, Bosanquet be- 
lieves, the real meaning of all creative and free activity. 
"The creative freedom of art," he declares, "is what we 
offer as the type of the characteristic logic or movement 
of the self. . . . Life — to which we are so often referred as 
the true continuity or active duration — is nothing in the 
world but a lower phase of an analogous logic related to 
human activity as a hill or a cloud to a Turner sketch of 
it, or as a bird's song to the Iliad. What we are here 
offered is a share in the eternal deed which constitutes 
reality, and I am unable to see what more than this our 
largest wishes can demand." ^^^ 

With this brief sketch of Bosanquet's doctrine before 
us, we may turn to the question whether this doctrine 
can be carried through consistently. Can the freedom of 
the finite self, as described by our author, be compatible 
with the logical completeness of the whole upon which 
its power is said to depend? Our negative reply to this 
question rests on three main contentions: (i), that finite 
freedom involves time, and hence is incompatible with 
the eternal completeness of the whole, (2), that Bosanquet 
himself does not adhere strictly to his own conception of 
freedom, but sometimes admits an element of contin- 
gency, (3) that the subordination of the moral standpoint 
to the standpoint of logic undermines the ground for the 
assertion of freedom. 

Ill 

The definitions of freedom which we quoted in our 
opening section all imply the reality both of time and of 
the finite. For, if time is not real, there is no meaning in 
'^* Thf Principle of Individuality and f'aluf, p. 334. 



84 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

expressions such as "nisus to the whole," or "passage," or 
self-transcendence, and if finiteness is mere appearance, 
the "passage of a content beyond itself" cannot be re- 
garded as a genuine achievement. Is, then, the reality 
of time and of the finite compatible with the logical com- 
pleteness of the whole as formulated in absolutism? Let 
us consider briefly our author's reply to this crucial ques- 
tion. 

Bosanquet maintains that there is no incompatibility 
between the temporal sequence and the eternal perfection 
of the whole. The temporal view-point is necessitated 
by finiteness, and, like the latter, has its measure of reality 
by reason of its relation to the whole. To quote: "Time 
is real as a condition of the experience of sensitive sub- 
jects, but it is not a form which profoundly exhibits the 
unity of things." ^^^ Or again: "We consider time as an 
appearance only, . . . but as an appearance inseparable 
from the membership of finiteness in infinity, and therefore 
from the self-revelation of a reality which as a whole 
is timeless." ^^^ Thus, for our author, the whole is time- 
less, not in the sense of excluding time, but rather in the 
sense of including and transcending it. Yet, as various 
critics have pointed out, it is difficult to see how such an 
inclusion is possible. Can past, present, and future be 
eternally present as elements in a complete whole? What 
meaning would there be then in speaking of the past as 
past, or the future as future? To questions such as these, 
Bosanquet might reply that the difficulty is due to the 
attempt to interpret in temporal terms what he says of the 
whole. He maintains no such absurdity as that present, 
past, and future are given now or at any other moment of 
time. Rather he maintains that time itself is so beset 
with contradictions that it inevitably forces the mind to 
transcend it. This, indeed, is what he means by calling 
time appearance. Now, although difficulties in the con- 

^" Logic, Vol. I, p. 273. 

'5" The Value and Destiny of the Individual, pp. 295 f. 



BOSANQUET'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 85 

ception of time must be admitted ev^en by the most radical 
temporalist, yet these difficulties do not justify us in 
neglecting one of the most fundamental aspects of our 
experience, or in subordinating it to the demand for logical 
completeness. Furthermore, the insistence upon the fact 
that the logical completeness of the whole cannot be 
described in temporal terms, throws little light on the 
problem of how our radically temporal experience can 
be included in this perfect whole. 

The reader of Bosanquet's volumes finds many asser- 
tions to the effect that the logical order is inclusive of the 
temporal. He seeks in vain, however, for any passage 
which actually shows how such an inclusion is possible. 
There are, indeed, several illustrations which are offered 
as hints of this relationship. ^^^ These illustrations com- 
prise: (a) the feelings and conditions of a great family, re- 
v^ealed in a series of acts, but not reducible to a mere 
temporal succession; (b) a musical composition, which is 
more than a sequence of tones, although expressed through 
this sequence; (c) the mind of a great scholar who appre- 
hends the spirit of the past and thus transcends time. 
Significant as these illustrations are as showing the reality 
of a supratemporal aspect of experience, they all fail to 
meet the real difficulty involved in the inclusion of the 
temporal within an eternally perfect whole. In each of 
these analogies, the whole, which is supposed to furnish 
the analogue for the Absolute, changes with time, and is 
complete only as a synthesis of past experience. A brief 
examination will bear out the truth of this statement. 
The family feeling, "the concentration and quintessence 
of the spatio-temporal series," far from being eternally 
complete is progressively transformed through the very 
process of its expression in time. The musical composition 
does not exist as a complete whole even in the musician's 
mind until after its expression in a temporal sequence. 
According to this illustration, then, the Absolute would 
*" Cf. The yalue and Destiny of the Individual, pp. 296 ff. 



86 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

be complete only at the end of the temporal series. In 
our author's opinion, however, time is essentially unending 
and so could never give us a complete whole. The way 
of escape lies, perhaps, in a different interpretation of the 
illustration. Thus, Bosanquet sometimes implies that 
the musical composition expresses only imperfectly a 
state of mind or a feeling experienced by the musician. 
This state of mind exists in its perfection in the musician's 
own mind and is not dependent upon its imperfect and 
often fragmentary expression. But if this interpretation 
be seriously accepted as furnishing an analogue of the 
relation of time to the Absolute, the Absolute must exist 
complete — apart from its temporal manifestation. The 
temporal series then is but a fragmentary representation 
of that which is in itself perfect and complete. But since 
the whole is complete without this representation, the 
temporal series cannot be included within the perfection 
of the whole nor necessitated by it. Thus the musical 
composition, from whatever angle it be considered, fails 
to show how time falls within the logical perfection of the 
Absolute. Bosanquet's third-mentioned illustration serves 
his purpose no better. The scholar is freed, in truth, from 
many limitations of time and space. His experience and 
knowledge are not confined to a moment of time. Yet his 
knowledge has been built bit by bit upon experience that 
is past, and he can see only so much of the future as is 
grounded in the past or present. Hence his mind fur- 
nishes no hint of that eternal intellectual intuition of the 
Absolute which includes all time in its grasp. There is 
another illustration to which Bosanquet often returns. In 
his opinion, the logical syllogism and the judgment furnish 
the best clue to the eternal experience of the Absolute, 
and here if anywhere a suggestion concerning the nature 
of the whole may be found. The relation of subject 
to predicate, or of premise to conclusion is not temporal, 
although our apprehension of it may be such.^^^ Thus, 
168 Cf. Logic, Vol. I, pp. 87 f. ; Vol. II., pp. 5 ff. 



BOSANQUET'S CONXEPTION OF FREEDOM 87 

the judgment which sustains the universe — the absolute 
totality in which all differences are unified — is itself 
timeless. The significance of this judgment lies in the 
assertion of unity in difference, and this unity is eternally 
present. The fact that it is known by us only under the 
form of succession is an accident due to our finiteness 
rather than a representation of its real nature. Although 
this description of the judgment suggests how the universe 
may be regarded as a timeless and rational whole, it does 
not show how time is included in this whole. Here again 
the logical and the temporal aspects fall apart, and we are 
left with the problem of the relation of our successive 
apprehension of difference to that eternal judgment in 
which all differences are aspects of a unified system. 

The difficulty of reconciling the temporal and logical 
standpoints is indicated not only by Bosanquet's failure 
to show how such a reconciliation is possible, but also by 
the difficulties into which he continually falls through 
his endeavor to maintain both standpoints. As an illus- 
tration of this point, let me cite the question of the rela- 
tion of the Absolute to evolution. From the logical point 
of view, the Absolute must be regarded as prior to all 
change. Indeed, Bosanquet frequently gives the Absolute 
a priority even from the temporal point of view. To quote 
from his Gifford lectures: "We are then to make the 
attempt to show in outline how the Absolute, seen from 
our side as a world of appearances, keeps throwing its 
content into living focuses, vortices, worlds; and how these 
again, each transmuting towards unity its realm of ex- 
ternality and eliciting its values, initiate and sustain the 
character in which, under the special emphasis lent by the 
special dissociation operative at that point, the Absolute 
appears." ^-''-^ But while the Absolute is here given a 
certain priority, it should also be observed that in so far 
as it is elicited and maintained by the activity of finite 
selves, the Absolute is a late product of evolution, since, 
*" The Value and Destiny of the Individual, p. 69. 



88 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

in Bosanquet's opinion, finite selves can come into exist- 
ence only as the result of a long process of unconscious 
evolution. ^^*^ We might even say that the Absolute, from 
this point of view, represents the goal of the effort of the 
finite selves rather than an eternal achievement. It may 
be objected that the contradiction here cited, is due to the 
misleading attempt to describe in temporal terms the re- 
lation of the Absolute to its expressions. Yet it is sig- 
nificant that Bosanquet himself does not keep clear of 
such an attempt. The consequent inconsistencies of his 
statements may therefore well be regarded as evidence, 
not of the illusory nature of time, but rather of the fun- 
damental irreconcilability of time and the eternal. 

This incompatibility of the logical and the temporal 
standpoints in an absolutistic system entails the relega- 
tion of freedom to the realm of appearance. If, as abso- 
lutism teaches, the whole is eternally complete, and the 
finite is eternally one with the infinite, then the nisus to 
the whole, the process of self-transcendence, and all finite 
striving are but illusory. 

Let us turn now to the consideration of our second point, 
i. e., to the contention that Bosanquet himself does not 
adhere strictly to his own definition of freedom. He 
declares time and again that freedom is completely ra- 
tional, that it differs in toto from contingency. One who 
fully examines his discussions of finite freedom, however, 
will discover at least the implication of an element of con- 
tingency. The same fact comes out with even greater 
clearness in connection with his treatment of the problem 
of evil. « Evil, as well as good, is said to be necessitated by 
its relation to the whole. In apparent contradiction to 
this view, however, it is also maintained that, in principle, 
evil or the seizing of a false clue is never necessary, "/n 
principle, a fruitful thought and course is always open; 
for the whole of the universe is accessible by some path 
or other from every complex within it. In principle, 
i«oCf. The Principle of Individuality and Value y pp. 157, 2i8 ff. 



BOSANQUET'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 89 

again, you — the finite mind — have always a clue to a 
relatively fruitful thought or act, because every demand of 
mind, pressed thoroughly home, must ultimately bring 
you to all that mind can be. Thus to fail of fruitful 
thought or choice is in the main to fail, as we all con- 
stantly fail, in sincerity and thoroughness." ^^^ This 
admission that failure is due to lack of sincerity or of 
thoroughness seems to imply the possibility of action 
being other than it is, and thereby to open the door to 
contingency. Bosanquet, however, guards against this 
impression by assuring us in the next sentence, that "we 
need not here discuss whether there is sense in saying 'we 
could have been more sincere and unselfish, or . . . more 
relevantly inspired, than we were.'" To this question 
his system can give only a negative answer, though Bo- 
sanquet maintains that the question itself is based on 
the fallacious idea of an empty free will, and is therefore 
misleading. Yet if the question is put aside, or if the 
negative answer is accepted, apparently the significance 
of the statement that in principle a path is open vanishes. 
For how can the path be said to be really open for the 
self, if that self is so circumscribed and limited that it must 
necessarily fail to find the path.'^ ^^^ Here our author 
might remind us of the distinction which he makes be- 
tween a necessary act and a necessary agent. He says 
that his view "recognizes a necessary act, an act which 
must be what it is, but not a necessary agent, because 
nothing but the agent determines the act, and there is 
no meaning in applying to him any 'must' or 'cannot 
help it' except in the sense that everything is what it 
is." '®^ Yet it is questionable whether the self can be 
justly regarded as having so definite and circumscribed 

"' The Value and Destiny of the Individual, p. 108. 

'" In a completely logical system, a path which is in principle open 
would seem necessarily to be actually open. If such is the case, how- 
ever, the explanation of evil vanishes. 

'" The Principle of Individuality and Value, pp. 354 f. 



90 



TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 



a nature as to necessitate but a single specific act. Indeed, 
Bosanquet himself constantly affirms that the self is 
always more than it appears, and hence cannot be limited 
N to any given act. The way out of this difficulty lies, 
perhaps, in taking refuge in the distinction between the 
temporal and logical view-points. From the temporal 
point of view, the self is at any moment limited and 
circumscribed, and hence fails to find the fruitful path; 
from the logical point of view, the self is one with the 
infinite, and so must always find the fruitful path even 
through "hardship and hazard." However this only 
brings us back to our former difficulty. If we decline to 
become entangled in this problem again, we must insist 
that the seizing of the wrong clue in a world where the 
good is in principle possible, is inexplicable unless con- 
tingency is admitted. But, as Bosanquet himself so 
constantly affirms, the admission of the least element of 
contingency means a gap in the logical completeness of 
the whole, and is therefore fatal to Absolutism. 

The treatment of finite freedom is further weakened 
by our author's tendency to subordinate the moral to the 
logical view-point. The duality between the temporal 
and the logical appears also in his discussion of morality. 
We are told, on the one hand, that the perfection of the 
whole is achieved through finite moral endeavor, ^^^ and 
yet, on the other hand, that the perfection of the whole 
transcends moral distinctions and is only imperfectly 
represented in moral striving. ^^^ The former statement 
does justice to the demands of the moral life; the latter 
is more consistent with Bosanquet's principles. In gen- 
eral, his tendency is to regard morality as bound up with 
finiteness and time, and therefore as subordinate to the 
logical completeness of the whole. ^^^ If our contention 

"^ Cf. The Principle of Individuality and Value, pp. 243, 371, 382. 
"^ Cf. The Value and Destiny of the Individual, pp. 307, 328. 
^" Cf . The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 17; The Value 
and Destiny of the Individual, pp. 193-194, 200-201, 212 f. 



BOSANQUEPS CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM 91 

concerning the incompatibility of the logical and the 
temporal is justified, morality, involving as it does time, 
must be illusory from the point of view of the Absolute. 
This means that the ground for the assertion of freedom 
is destroyed, inasmuch as the demand for freedom arises 
primarily in the moral realm. 

Our conclusion then is that freedom as an attribute of 
the finite is not possible in a universe which is a coherent, 
changeless, and eternal whole. The only possibility of 
saving freedom without abandoning absolutism lies in at- 
tributing freedom not to the finite, but to the Absolute, 
This brings us to the final section of our discussion, i. e., 
to the question of the freedom of the Absolute. 

IV 

Bosanquet sometimes maintains that freedom, in its 
full sense, can be ascribed only to the Absolute. Freedom, 
like truth and reality, is a matter of degree. It is the end 
of the efi"ort of the finite self, rather than a characteristic 
of his striving, and it is attained only in so far as such a 
self is one with the Absolute. The definitions which we 
quoted above obviously do not relate to this sort of free- 
dom, since they imply the reality of time and of finiteness. 
What, then, is freedom as a characteristic of the Abso- 
lute? Once more we shall avail ourselves of Bosanquet's 
definition. Freedom is equivalent to determinateness. 
It implies the adequate response of each part to the de- 
mands of the whole. As contrasted with merely me- 
chanical causation, it is '*a living and concrete world of 
appreciation, in which the whole quality of every element 
is capable in principle of bearing upon and responding to 
the whole quality of every other." ^^^ In a word, freedom 
is equivalent to logical coherence. It cannot escape no- 
tice, however, that the conception of logical coherence 
has so little in common with the ordinary meaning of 

'" The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 342. 



92 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

freedom, that it is confusing to identify the two terms. 
Furthermore, as Sabine has pointed out in his admirable 
criticism of Bosanquet's Logic, the idea of absolute co- 
herence, or of absolute totality eludes our grasp. ^^^ The 
human mind is essentially selective, and cannot conceive 
a system which is all-inclusive. All systems, as we know 
them, are bounded by certain limits set by the dominating 
purpose. The Absolute, however, has no limits whatso- 
ever since there is nothing without it; furthermore, ac- 
cording to Bosanquet, the Absolute is not unified by pur- 
pose, since purpose implies defect and striving. Indeed, 
Bosanquet himself admits that absolute totality can 
never be reached by discursive reasoning, as judgment is 
compelled to describe reality in a relational form.^^^ 
Hence freedom as complete rationality or logical coherence 
transcends the limitations of the finite mind, and can be 
grasped only by recourse to mystic contemplation. 

Waiving the matter relating to the intelligibility of 
absolute freedom, we come back to the fundamental 
difficulty inherent in the whole formulation of absolutism. 
We are face to face once more with the old problem of the 
relation of the temporal to the eternal. The incompati- 
bility of the two involves the separation of the Absolute 
from the finite world. On the one hand, we find the eternal 
and unchanging experience of the Absolute, and on the 
other hand, the finite world of struggle and striving, of 
change and time. On the one hand, there is complete 
reality and complete perfection; on the other, appearance 
and finiteness. Now such a separation of the Absolute 
and the finite, of reality and appearance, can never be 
admitted by the absolutist, for the principal tenet of his 
creed is that apart from the finite the Absolute is nothing, 
and that the Absolute achieves and manifests its perfec- 
tion only through the transcendence of the imperfect 
and incomplete. But if this doctrine be strictly held, it 

188 Cf. Philosophical Review, Vol. 21, pp. 546-565. 
"3 Cf. Logic, 2d edition, Vol. II, p. 290. 



BOSANQUET'S CONXEPTIOX OF FREEDOM 93 

is evident that the Absolute must stand or fall with the 
finite. If finite struggles are illusory, the Absolute elicited 
by these struggles must be illusory also. On the other 
hand, if finiteness and time are real, then the Absolute 
must itself be temporal. Realized through the finite, 
it must change and grow with each change in the finite. 
This conception of the Absolute leaves room for finite 
freedom, but it banishes the rigid coherence, the complete 
logical stability, i. e., the "freedom" of the whole. Hence 
it means the abandonment of absolutism. 

We conclude, then, that Bosanquet's absolutism is not 
compatible with freedom. Finite freedom is ruled out 
by reason of its temporal implications and presuppositions. 
The freedom of the Absolute, on the contrary, is so rigidly 
logical in character that it can exist only in a complete 
and timeless whole. The difficulty here is that this whole 
must be isolated from the finite and temporal world. 
This, however, is as fatal to Bosanquet's system as the 
admission of contingency or of time, for the isolation of 
the Absolute from the finite is subversive of the main 
thesis of absolutism. 

Our criticism of Bosanquet's discussion of freedom must 
not blind us to its value. His conception of freedom em- 
phasizes the fact that freedom need not be considered as 
an incarnation of caprice or irrationality. His identifica- 
tion of freedom with complete rationality points to the 
goal, rather than describes the actual condition of man's 
freedom. Although man may be free to do good or evil, 
yet as his ethical consciousness develops, he will express 
his freedom in acts that are progressively more rational. 
Finally, as Bosanquet's greatest contribution to the prob- 
lem, we would again stress his insistence that the self is 
not an existent substantial entity with definite limits, but 
is an ever widening life capable of embracing more and 
more of reality. Thus, man's true freedom lies not in his 
self-subsistence as a bit of reality separate from all others, 
but in his power continually to enrich his experience by 



94 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

entering into the lives of others, and by identifying him- 
self with great movements and causes. Yet we must not 
overlook a fact of which Bosanquet was neglectful, 
namely, that there is always a self-reference which pre- 
vents the self from ever losing itself in another self or in 
the Absolute. Furthermore, this process of self-transcend- 
ence is not eternally true nor logically necessary, but is a 
contingent expression of the finite will, and a real process 
in time. It is only thus that we can do justice to the 
freedom of the finite self, or to the reality of time and of 
progress. Bosanquet, indeed, could not give due signifi- 
cance to progress, because of his insistence upon the 
timeless character of the whole. And yet he admits that 
there is genuine progress in one direction at least, i. e., 
in our apprehension of the real meaning and significance 
of freedom. 1^^ 

170 Cf, TA^ Falue and Destiny of the Individual, p. 317. 



CHAPTER Vn 

CONXLUSIOX 

Our concluding task is to gather together the threads 
of our discussion in order to see whither it has led us. 
This task we shall best accomplish by comparing the 
various doctrines, bringing out their likenesses and differ- 
erences, and indicating their values and defects. 

The attractiveness of Haeckel's view lies in its extreme 
simplicity. According to this view an absolute denial of 
freedom is the necessary outcome of the acceptance of 
causation. Unfortunately for mechanistic determinists, 
however, the problem cannot be so readily solved. In 
the first place, even in the material world, there is no 
proof that mechanical causation is universal. Indeed, 
if time is real, and evolution is genuinely progressive, 
then, as Bergson, Ward, and James alike show, mechanical 
causation cannot be universal. In the second place, in the 
psychic realm, the category of mechanical causation is 
inherently unsatisfactory, since conscious experience has 
a forward look — a teleological reference — that precludes 
the possibility of its interpretation solely by reference to the 
past. In the realm of consciousness, ideals and purposes 
are dominant factors, and these lose their significance 
if interpreted mechanically. Hence there is justifica- 
tion for the vigorous protest on the part of many phi- 
losophers against any attempt to read volition in terms of 
mechanical causation. Furthermore, the concept of cau- 
sation itself is full of difficulties. When examined care- 
fully, it either becomes intelligible solely by reference to 
our experience of activity, or points beyond the concep- 
tion of the determination of the present by the past, to 
the idea of a system including past, present, and future. 
Regarding causation from this latter point of view, Bo- 



96 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

sanquet has good grounds for his substitution of the 
concept of relevance for that of mechanical causation. 
Considerations such as these show that it is impossible to 
dispose of the problem of freedom by a mere assertion of 
the universal validity of mechanism. 

The next three views discussed by us have, as we have 
seen, a number of points in common. James, Ward, and 
Bergson agree that freedom implies the reality of change, 
of time, and of contingency. Moreover, they alike assert 
that freedom is revealed in our immediate consciousness 
of our own activity. They therefore oppose vigorously any 
attempt to deny freedom on account of intellectualistic 
scruples. Significant as these points of resemblance are, 
our discussion has revealed interesting differences be- 
tween the three views. 

In regard to the protest against intellectualism, Ward 
is far less radical than either James or Bergson. The two 
latter thinkers, indeed, are frankly anti-intellectualistic, 
declaring vigorously that concepts are inherently incapa- 
ble of describing freedom and activity. Yet at this point 
there is a divergence between James and Bergson also. 
The former declares that freedom is revealed in perceptual 
experience; the latter maintains that it is accessible only 
to that means of deeper apprehension or insight which he 
calls intuition. Again, Ward is less radical than either 
James or Bergson with respect to the question of con- 
tingency. All three thinkers accept the reality of con- 
tingency, but Ward affirms that it is limited by the pres- 
ence of a single World Ground. 

In regard to the question of the nature of freedom, we 
find an important difference between the opinions of 
the three writers whom we are now considering. For 
Bergson, the most fundamental conception of freedom is 
that of mere spontaneity — the creative activity of life 
as such. For Ward, on the contrary, freedom is pre- 
eminently personal and spiritual. James here occupies 
a mediating position. In many of his discussions he seems 



CONCLUSION 97 

to approximate very closely to the view of Bergson, while 
at other times his interest in the human aspect of the 
problem and his identification of freedom with choice 
bring him nearer to Ward. From the interest of both 
James and Ward in the human side of freedom, arises 
another important point of contrast between their dis- 
cussions on the one hand, and that of Bergson on the 
other. The two former constantly emphasize the ethical 
aspect of freedom, examining eagerly and carefully the 
bearing of freedom on such questions as responsibility, 
regret, evil, etc. Bergson, on the contrary, almost en- 
tirely ignores these problems; his prime concern is the 
discovery of the nature of the world process — the vindi- 
cation of the reality of time. 

This introduces a further point in which we find Berg- 
son aligned against James and Ward. For Bergson, 
individuality is at best incomplete; the individual is but 
a "little rill in the great river of life." For James and 
Ward, on the other hand, individuality is of paramount 
importance. Hence Bergson inclines toward a monistic 
view, while Ward and James are explicitly pluralistic in 
their teaching. Here a comparison of the views of James 
and Ward shows that James is the more radical, inasmuch 
as Ward introduces into his pluralistic view the thought 
of a single World Ground that unifies the separate selves. 

Were we asked to state succinctly the special contribu- 
tion of each of these philosophers to the problem, we 
should say: Bergson shows the relation of freedom to 
time and to creation; James goes further in that he con- 
nects freedom with pluralism as well as with contingency. 
Ward adds as his particular contribution a careful account 
of freedom as characteristic of personal agents. Al- 
though Ward is often inclined to compromise, and so falls 
into difficulties avoided by the more radical thinkers, his 
discussion does more justice to the complexity of the issue 
than do theirs. He does not, as we have seen, identify 
the problem of freedom with the question of the mere 



98 TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

existence of contingency or of novelty, but considers 
carefully the precise nature and implications of personal 
volition. A thoroughgoing analysis of this kind is indis- 
pensable, for the problem of freedom arises primarily in 
the ethical realm. Hence it is that the standpoint of 
personal idealism represented by Ward, even though 
unable to afford an adequate solution of all the difficulties, 
nevertheless offers a peculiarly advantageous approach to 
the problem of freedom, 

Bosanquet's discussion terminates, we have seen, in a 
denial of the existence of contingency, and in an assertion 
of the reality of freedom, first, as the power or self- 
transcendent striving of the finite self, and second, as 
the complete rationaUty of the Absolute. Our examina- 
tion, however, led to the conclusion that neither of these 
conceptions can be carried out satisfactorily in Bosan- 
quet's thoroughly monistic system. The principal diffi- 
culties in the way of Bosanquet's success we found to be 
that of reconciling the temporal aspect of striving with 
the completeness of the whole. His failure, therefore, we 
regard as indirect evidence for the claim that freedom 
implies the reality of time, and is incompatible with 
monism. 

Additional evidence in support of the latter point may be 
found by noting a significant similarity between doctrines 
as widely distinct as those of Bergson and Bosanquet. 
In both cases a monistic tendency leads to a subordina- 
tion of the individual to the whole, and to a substitu- 
tion of the freedom of the whole for the freedom of the 
finite self. In both cases, moreover, the resulting concep- 
tion of freedom is one that transcends human knowledge. 
There is, as it is probably unnecessary for us again to 
emphasize, a vast difference between the monism implied 
in Bergson's view and that contended for by Bosanquet. 
All the more interesting, therefore, is the fact that these 
two sorts of monism involve similar results as regards 
the reality of human freedom. In reference to the ques- 



CONCLUSION 99 

tion of the relation of monism to freedom, we should note 
also the increased difficulties with regard to freedom that 
enter with Ward's introduction of a monistic principle. 

Must we then conclude that pluralism alone is compat- 
ible with the reality of freedom? Apparently there Is no 
escape from this conclusion so long as freedom involves 
contingency. We are brought then to the crucial question 
as to whether contingency is necessary for freedom. An 
affirmative answer to this question seems to be demanded 
by the moral consciousness. The moral consciousness is 
concerned with the reality of the freedom of the finite self, 
not of any cosmic being, and the freedom of the finite im- 
plies the reality both of time and of contingency. Further- 
more, even though mere contingency does not by itself 
insure moral activity, the significance of such activ- 
ity depends upon the reality of contingency. For, if 
contingency is not real, if all occurs according to 
rigid necessity, then the facts of obligation and of 
responsibility lose their significance. In support of 
the contention that freedom in any significant sense 
involves contingency, we may call to mind that even in 
those cases in which freedom was defined as self-expression, 
as rational activity, as the activity of the noumenal self, 
etc., we detected an implication that if the self would 
it could attain this freedom. For instance, the Stoics 
imply that man can if he will accept willingly whatever 
destiny brings, and so attain the freedom of the sage. 
Or again, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel alike imply that man 
is responsible for the attainment of rational freedom. 
Indeed, even an extreme rationalist like Bosanquet does 
not, we contend, succeed in avoiding at least an im- 
plication of contingency. Hence the claim that freedom 
in the sense of contingency is a postulate of the moral life 
seems valid. 

The existence of contingency, however, cannot be so 
readily affirmed, for the demands of the will here conflict 
with the demands of the reason. If contingency is a pos- 



lOO TYPICAL RECENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM 

tulate of the moral life, necessity is a postulate of the 
rational consciousness, and it is as unjustifiable to ignore 
the one as the other. It is for this reason primarily that 
the discussions of freedom which we have considered fail 
to give an adequate solution of the problem. On the one 
hand, thinkers like James, Bergson, and Ward, subordi- 
nate reason to will, and maintain contingency regardless 
of the demands of reason. On the other hand, rationalists 
like Bosanquet exalt reason, and deny contingency with- 
out reconciling this denial with the claims of morality. 
Prima facie it appears that the one procedure is as arbi- 
trary as the other, and that the acceptance either of 
voluntarism or of rationalism is a matter of personal 
choice. For after all there is as much likelihood that the 
universe meets our moral demands as that it satisfies our 
craving for complete rationality. Yet the difficulty is 
far more fundamental than this, for in spite of their con- 
flict neither will nor reason can be independent of the 
other. Voluntarists may assert the primacy of the will, 
but they cannot procure the satisfaction of the demands 
set by the will itself save by the control of experience 
gained through reason. Moreover, any attempt on their 
part to prove the truth of their view and to criticize 
opposing theories inevitably involves a reliance upon the 
authority of reason. On the other hand, intellectualists 
can never justifiably ignore the demands of will, since the 
rational construction and organization which they exalt 
depend ultimately upon an act of will. As Augustine 
long ago showed, there could be no knowledge if it were 
not for the activity of will. Thus, neither voluntarists 
nor rationalists can give a complete solution to the prob- 
lem of freedom. 

Our discussion, then, seems to issue in a dualism of 
reason and will. This dualism, moreover, cannot be over- 
come by a return to immediacy such as is advocated 
by James and Bergson. The statement that we immedi- 
ately experience freedom may afford us a certain satis- 



CONCLUSION lOl 

faction, but, as Bosanquet so well shows, we cannot re- 
main permanently in the realm of the immediate. The 
demands of reason inevitably reassert themselves. They 
cannot be met by being ignored. Hence no philosophic 
solution of any problem can be gained by recourse to the 
immediate. 

Although the dualistic conclusion to which we have 
come is undoubtedly exceedingly unsatisfactory, it is, we 
claim, more justifiable than extreme voluntarism or ex- 
treme intellectualism. We may hope, moreover, that 
this dualism is not final. Human nature is ultimately one, 
and the mutual dependence of will and reason makes any 
irreconcilable conflict between them unlikely. From the 
early days of philosophy, and especially since the time of 
Kant, philosophers have been striving to work out a syn- 
thetic view of human experience which should do justice 
to the demands of both reason and will. So far, however, 
such syntheses have not prov'ed completely satisfactory, 
but upon examination have been resolvable into some 
form of voluntarism or of intellectualism. Nevertheless, 
in spite of such failure, the task attempted by Hegel and 
other post-Kantian idealists may perhaps be successfully 
performed in the future by means of a new logic more 
capable of dealing with the concrete experience of the 
individual. ^'^ Until then, we can only hold fast to the 
conflicting demands of both will and reason, with the 
assurance that an adequate solution of the problem 
freedom must be gained by a frank recognition of the 
claims of both, rather than by a superficial and arbitrary 
subordination of one to the other. 

"' An indication in this direction may be found in Baldwin's 
Thought and Things, and A Genetic Theory of Reality. His care- 
ful discussion of the way in which the dualism of which we have 
spoken arises in the life of the individual and in that of the race throws 
new light on the subject, even thout^h his solution of this dualism by 
means of the aesthetic experience is not free from difficulties. 



VITA 

Gertrude Carman Bussey was born in New York City, 
January 13, 1888. She received her primary and second- 
ary education in New York City, and in Mount Vernon, 
N. Y. In 1904, she entered Barnard College, where she 
completed the work of the freshman year. She then 
transferred to Wellesley College, from which institution 
she received the degree of B. A. in 1908. As an under- 
graduate, her major work was taken in the department 
of physics, but she also specialized in the department of 
philosophy, and there completed nine hours of work in 
excess of the requirement for a B. A. degree. These nine 
hours were therefore credited towards the degree of M. A. 
In 1908-1909, she attended courses in philosophy under 
Dr. Dewey and Dr. Montague of Columbia University, 
and started a master's thesis under the direction of Pro- 
fessor Calkins of Wellesley College. The thesis, which 
consisted of a translation, with notes, of La Mettrie's 
Man a Machine, was completed the following year, and 
Miss Bussey received the degree of M. A. from Wellesley 
College in June, 1910. Two years later her thesis was 
published in a revised form, by the Open Court Co. In 
the year 1912-1913, Miss Bussey attended courses in 
philosophy and sociology at Columbia University. From 
>9i3~J9i5i she was in residence at Northwestern Univer- 
sity, holding a fellowship during 1913-1914 and a scholar- 
ship during 1914-1915. 

Miss Bussey has held the following positions: Instructor 
in Mathematics, Brantwood Hall, Bronxville, N. Y., 
1909-1912; Instructor in Philosophy, Goucher College, 
'9^5~i9i6; Assistant Professor, 1916-1917. 



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